
Book '-37 



J, 

STERLING'S 



SOUTHERN ORATOR: 



CONTAINING 



9*y 



STANDARD LECTURES IN PROSE AND .POETRY FOR DECLARATION 
AND RECITATION IN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 




BY 

Prof. RICHARD ^STERLING, A.M., 

PRINCIPAL OF EDGEWORTH FEMALE SEMINARY* * /•- 

37 

oweists j±nt> j^g-j^r, no wiLLiJ&i st. 

GREENSBORO, N. C. ! 

K. STERLING & SON. 
1867. 



f>1 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

RICHARD STERLING, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of 
Cape Fear, of North-Carolina. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE 

Elocution..* « 19 

Articulation . . . . 20 

Inflection 25 

Series 23 

Parenthesis 29 

Monotone . 29 

Accent 29 

Emphasis 30 

Modulation 81 

Pitch . . . . 32 

Force 32 

Quality 33 

Pauses 34 

Examples 36 

Gesture 3T 

Declamation 39 



STANDARD SELECTIONS. 

PART I. 

I>ROSE. 

1. The Power of Eloquence James C. Dobbin 41 

2. The Power of the Orator. Anonymous 42 

3. A Free Press Curran 43 

4. Famine in Ireland S. S. Prentiss, 44 

5. Patriotism H. L. Pinckney 45 

6. Apprehensions of Disunion William Pinkney 46 

7. Daniel Webster H. W. Hilliard 47 

8. The British Empire Macaulay 48 

9. The Drunkard's Soliloquy Field's Scrap Book 49 

10. Religion Mackenzie 50 

11. The Union James McDowell 50 

12. Earl of Chatham William Wirt 51 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

13. Intervention in European Wars Jeremiah Clemens 52 

14. Missouri Compromise Robert Toombs 53 

15. Texas and Alabama Samuel Houston 54 

16. Hope for the Future R. M. T. Hunter 55 

17. Popularizing Government Andrew Johnson 56 

IS. National Progress H. S. Legare 56 

19. State Pride W. W. Avery 57 

20. The Necessity for Consuls Abroad John Perkins 58 

21. Patient Industry Essential to Success Rev. Dr. Talmadge 59 

22. The Destiny of America J. Story 60 

23. The Price of Liberty is Perpetual Vigilance J. C. Calhoun 61 

24. The Death of Hon. A. P. Butler A. H. Stephens 62 

25. The Bane of Our Government John Bell 63 

26. The Standard of Citizenship John Kelly 64 

27. Restoration of Peace and Harmony R. P. Trippe x 65 

2S. Preservation of the Union John Tyler. €6 

29. Oliver Cromwell Rt. Rev. Bishop Atkinson. . . . 67 

30. The Soldiers of the Revolution T. L. Anderson 68 

31. The Close of a Patriot's Life William Wirt 68 

32. Water J. B. Gough 69 

33. Genius Portland Tribune 70 

34. Extent of Country no Bar to Union Edmund Randolph 71 

35. Henry Winter Davis A. J. Creswell 72 

36. A Withering Invective S. S. Prentiss 73 

37. Taxation for Defence J. C. Calhoun 74 

38. The Love of Truth. Rev. James H. Thornwell 75 

39. Alexander Hamilton J. G. Baldwin 76 

40. Destiny of the United States H. W. Hilliard. 77 

41. The Best Means for Securing Peace G. Morris 79 

42. Union of Reason with Religion Rev. T. P. Davis 79 

43. Scepticism B. F. Moore 80 

44. Resources of a Cultivated Mind Rev. T. F. Davis 81 

45. Avarice and Prodigality to be alike Avoided W. H. Battle 82 

46. The True Philosopher's Stone George Davis 83 

47. Importance of General Education W. B. Shepard 84 

43. Man Responsible for his Belief Rev. W. S. Plumer 85 

49. Short Words Rev. G. W. McPhail 86 

50. Virtue and Intelligence will determine our Na- ) _ ,_ _, 

r J. Y. Mason 86 



tional Destiny., 



51. Importance of Female Society in the Improve- ) _ _ , „ 

* <■**■ i , m * [-James Iredell 87 

ment of Mind and Character > 

52. Queer People (Humorous) Anonymous 88 

53. American Women J. Y. Mason 89 

64. Washington and Clay R. M. Charlton 90 

56. Profane Swearing Rev. R. Hall 91 

5C. Opposition of the South to the Tariff. R. Y. Hayne 92 

57. Alcohol Anonymous 93 

68, Mind Rev. A. Baker 94 

60. Genius and Liberty Rev. E. L. Magoon 95 

60. Live for your State R. Gorrell 95 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

01. Our Safeguard against Delusion A. 0. P. Nicholson 06 

62. American Progress II. W. Hilliard 97 

63. From a Speech on Oregon W. H. Haywood 98 

64. Private Character A. G. Brown 99 

65. No Education Complete if it Neglects the Morals, ) 

_ _ , . ~, .. ( vv. A. (jratiam. iou 

Manners, and Affections ) 

66. Importance of a Home Literature William Eaton, Jr 101 

67. Hon. George E. Badger i R. P. Dick 101 

68. Music ' Virginia Herald 102 

69. The Soul of Man Saurin 103 

70. The Bible our Chart W. B. Shepard 104 

71. Progress of the Age E. Everett 105 

72. Triumphs of Christianity Rev. H. B. Bascom 106 

73. The Sentinels of Liberty Daniel Webster 107 

74. Exhortation to Young Men William Eaton 108 

75. The Duties of American Statesmen John Bell 109 

76. Hon. Andrew P. Butler of S. C J. Y. Mason 109 

77. The Dangers from Political Agitations A. G. Brown 110 

78. The Right of Property M. R. H. Garnett Ill 

79. The Law of God L. M. Keitt 112 

80. The Temperance Reform J. B. Gough 112 

81. Our Honored Dead R. P.Dick 114 

82. The Pacific Railroad A. Pike 115 

83. American Freedom T. F. Meagher 116 

S4. Industry W. Lumpkin 117 

85. Eulogy on Washington J. M. Mason US 

86. The Murderer's Secret. . Daniel Webster 119 

87. Sabbath-Schools Milford Bard 120 

88. The Union A. P. Butler 121 

89. False Courage William Ellery Channing 122 

90. True Courage William Ellery Channing 123 

91. Wealth E. A. Nisbet 123 

92. Majesty of Intellect Rev. G. S. Weaver 124 

93. Shall our Laurels Wither? A. P. Harcourt. 125 

94. Man's Destiny G. D. Prentice 126 



:po:et:r y. 

95. The Little Orator Rev. T. M. Harris 127 

96. The Power of Eloquence Tupper 128 

97. My Boyhood J. G. Saxe 129 

9S. Friendship Mrs. Norton 130 

99. The Judgment Milman 131 

100. Song of Marion's Men W. C. Bryant * 131 

101. The Savoyard's Return H. K. White 133 

102. To Friends in Heaven So. Lit. Messenger 134 

103. Tell Me, ye Winged Winds Charles Mackay 135 

104. Slander Mrs. Osgood 136 

105. The Only Son of his Mother Mrs. M. J. Preston 137 

106. " Eternal Art," to her Sister, M Science" P. H. Uayne 139 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

107. Monterey 7 C. P. Hoffman 140 

10S. Daniel Webster O. W. Holmes 141 

109. The Lily a Confidante Henry Timrod 142 

110. The Confession (Humorous) Blackwood's Magazine 144 

111. H. St. George and B. Tucker St. George Tucker 144 

112. Competence .1 Bean Swift 145 

113. A New Year's Wish So. Lit. Messenger 146 

114. Tell among the Mountains J. Sr Knowles 147 

115. The Past HenryTimrod 148 

116. The Family Bible Anonymous 149 

11T. The Light of the Ages Mrs. Gilman 150 

118. Columbia, Remember thy Heroes J. G. Clark 151 

119. Paddy's Metamorphosis (Humorous) Thomas Moore 152 

120. Books A. J. C 153 

121. Lines to a Southern Lady Emeline S. Smith 154 

122. The Union and the Constitution J. R. Thompson 155 

123. The Heart and the Bird .A. B. Meek 156 

124. The Funeral of Henry Clay Mrs. M. B. Clarke 157 

125. Christopher Columbus J. Barron Hope 158 

126. The Mythology of Greece J. G. Percival 159 

127. Seneca Lake J. G. Percival 160 

128. After Anonymous 161 

129. Female Patriotism J. R. Thompson 161 

130. Stanzas on Death Anonymous 162 

131. Autumn P. H. Hayne 163 

132. Bad Habits Isabella R. Byrne 164 

133. The Unknown So. Lit. Messenger 165 

134. A Summer Scene Isaac Watts 166 

135. Meeting of Satan and Death Milton 166 

136. Wolsey's Soliloquy Shakespeare 167 

137. The True Source of Happiness Dr. Johnson 168 

13S. Under the Snow J. H. Bonner 169 

139. King Richard So. Lit. Messenger 170 

140. Solitude Robert Pollok 171 

141. To my Mother W. R. Wallace 172 

142. Time G. D. Prentice. 173 

143. Eve's Lament Milton 174 

144. Man Young 174 

145. The Better Land Mrs. Hemans 175 

146. The Removal (Humorous) Anonymous 176 

147. Hope Campbell 177 

148. The Bereft Mrs. M. A. Miller 178 

1 V.). Honor to our Workingmen II. C. Preuss 179 

150. American Aristocracy (Humorous) ; J. G. Saxe 181 

151. The Sunny South The Land We Love 181 

162. The Little Boy that Died J. II. Robinson 182 

168. The Death of Warren Epes Sargent 184 

154. Robert Emmet Anonymous 185 

105. Hagar in the Wilderness N. P. Willis 186 



CONTENTS. 



DIALOGUES. 

PAGE 

156. The Two Robbers Aikin 188 

157. Lovegold and James. Fielding 1S9 

158. The Monster of Many Names Anonymous 191 

159. Gessler and William Tell J. S. Knowles 193 

160. The Peruvian Soldier ^R. B. Sheridan 195 

161. Pursuits in Life. * Z. B. Sturgus 19T 



PART II. 

162* Polite Literature James C. Dobbin 201 

163. The Influence of Lofty Thoughts .....A. Pike 202 

164. Christianity more than a Philosophy Rev. B. M. Palmer, D.D 203 

165. The Future of our Country H. W. Miller 205 

166. Achievements of our Fathers . .Dr. John Hill 206 

167. The Moral Element in Literature Rev. George Howe, D.D 207 

168. The Warnings of History. Anonymous 208 

169. National Justice B. F. Moore 209 

170. The Highest Knowledge Alexander H. Sands 210 

171. Character of the True Child of God Rev. T. V. Moore, D.D 211 

172. Respect the Foundation of National Friendship . . . Z. B. Vance 213 

173. Filial Duties Charles Manly. 215 

174. Religion and Medicine. .Rev. T. V. Moore, D.D 216 

175. Development of Southern Resources W. H. Garland 218 

176. Moral Wrong not left Unpunished M. B. Smith 220 

177. Defence of a Client S. S. Prentiss 222 

178. Homestead Bill— 1858 Andrew Johnson 223 

179. Government B. R. Wellford. 224 

180. The Bible and Civil Law Rev. T. V. Moore, D.D 225 

181. Obstacles to Compromise— 1861 S. A. Douglas 227 

182. The Death of Hamilton Dr. Mason.. 223 

183. Human' Excellence not Self-born George Davis 230 

184. The Improvement of Conscience Rev. W. M. Wingate 231 

185. Duelling Rev. E. Nott, D.D £34 

1S6. On the Increase of the Army. Jefferson Davis 235 

187. Expansibility of the Government of the United \ 

gtat f James M. Mason 236 

188. A Defence of Webster J. M. Clayton 237 

189. National Monument to Washington R. C. Winthrop 239 

190. The Hungarian Exile Louis Kossuth 240 

191. An Appeal for the Orphan H. A. Wise 241 

192. The Necessity for the Union as it Was ..J. L. Dawson 242 

193. The Folly of Infidelity Dr. Dwight 244 

194. The Surprise of Death Massillon 246 

195. The Bible above all Price Rev. Edward Payson 247 

196. Death of Hon. HughL. White W. C. Preston 249 

197. Military Genius of Washington R. M. T. Hunter 251 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

198. Death of William Wirt Daniel Webster 251 

199. The Sure Road to Success William Gaston 252 

200. Intemperance Edward Everett 254 

201. Close of Washington's Life W. G. Clark 255 

202. Christianity Rev. B. M. Palmer, D.D 256 

203. Heroes of Moore's Creek. ...J. G. Wright 257 

204. British Aggression J. H. Hammond 258 

205. Death of Henry Clay J. J. Breckinridge 260 

206. Death of Daniel Webster L. Preston 261 

207. An Eloquent Peroration Reverdy Johnson 262 

208. Davie and Moore A. D. Murphey 263 

•209. Sufferings of the South G. Dawson 265 

210. Memorial of the Young Men of Philadelphia S. L. Southard 266 

211. Gen. Samuel Houston Thomas H. Benton 268 

212. Eulogy on Henry Clay Rev. C. M. Butler, D.D 269 

213. Virginia D. W. Voorhees 270 

214. Plea for the Union— 1850 Henry Clay 271 

215. Funeral Address at the Grave of Elisha Mit- \ ^ fc Rey j H Q tey p p 2*72 

chell,D.D ) 

216. British Refugees Patrick Henry 273 

217. Remedy for Sectional Hostility G. Dawson 275 

218. Monument to Henry Clay T. F. Marshall 276 

219. Intemperance of Party William Gaston 278 

220. Adams and Jefferson Joseph Story 279 

221. Retributive Justice Thomas Corwin 280 

222. The South— 1850 Jefferson Davis. 283 

223. The Massacres of Alamo and Goliad Thomas H. Benton 284 

224. Famine in Ireland Henry Clay 285 

225. The Currency J- C. Calhoun 287 

226. The Indians Silas Wright 288 

227. France and the United States General Washington 290 

228. The South during the War of 1812 R. Y. Hayne 291 

229. Defence of the Supreme Court J. S. Black 292 

230. Necessity of Education in the United States O. N. Odgen 296 

>231. The Pitiable Condition of Ignorance W. W. Hageman 297 

232. Blind Devotion to Party F. W. Pickens 299 

233. Relief for the Bankrupt N. P. Tallmadge 300 

234. Equal Rights John Letcher 301 

235. A Cultivated Mind in Old Age Rev. Thomas F. Davis 302 

236. Terms of Reunion J. R. Doolittle 304 

237. Origin of the Federal Government John Randolph 305 

238. Patriotic Ambition Henry Clay 306 

239. The Tariff— 1828 .George McDuffie 307 

240. Assumptions of Power by France Miles Taylor 308 

241. The Pleasures of Science R. M. T. Hunter 309 

242. The Majesty of God Anonymous 811 

213. Republics H. S. Legare 312 

244. Eulogy on John C. Calhoun Daniel Webster 313 

245. The Dignity of Labor W. L. Scott 314 

210. Christianity and Infidelity in Contrast Rev. S. Robinson, D.D 315 

247. Obstacles in the Way of the Spread of the Gospel. .Rev. M. D. Hoge, D.D 317 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

248. Miseries of War W. M. Cocke 318 

249. The Microscope and Telescope Edward Everett 320 

250. American Literature James B. Shepard 321 

251. An Appeal for the Union J. M. Berrien 322 

252. Vindication of South-Carolina George McDuffie 323 

253. Intemperance Rev. William Hooper, D.D . . . 324 

254. The Same— Concluded " " " " 325 

255. Religion, Union, and Liberty are our Heritage. . . Rev. James Craik, D.D 826 

256. La Fayette J. Q. Adams 327 

257. Chief-Justice Taney J. P. Benjamin 323 

25S. The Birthday of Washington Rufus Choate 329 

259. American Independence R. H. Lee 330 

260. The Lone Star of Texas Webb 331 

261. Address to His Soldiers M. B. Lamar 333 

262. The Teacher Lord Brougham 334 

263. Description of Junius Edmund Burke 335 

264. Prospect of War— 1811 J. C. Calhoun 336 

265. On the Annexation of Texas Alexander H. Stephens 337 

266. An Appeal for the Union John A. Gilmer 339 

267. General Zachary Taylor Henry W. Miller 341 

268. The Duty of Educated Men George E. Badger 343 

.269. Energy Alexander H. Stephens 844 

270. Defence of Jefferson Henry Clay 816 

271. War with France J.' J. Crittenden, 347 

272. Restoration of the Union J. L. Dawson 343 

273. The South-American Republics Daniel Webster 350 

274. Confiscation of Government Debts John Randolph 352 

275. Adams and Jefferson Edward Everett 354 

276. The People are Jealous of their Liberty E. Livingston 355 

277. The Bonnie Blue Flag A. L. White 856 

278. The Sword T. S. Grimke 357 

279. Education C. Phillips 358 

250. Against Adopting the Federal Constitution Patrick Henry 860 

251. The Same— Continued " " 361 

252. Expunging Resolution in U. S. Senate— 1837 Henry Clay 363 

253. Government Extravagance J. J. Crittenden 364 

254. Defalcation and Retrenchment S. S. Prentiss 365 

255. Clay and Webster Mr. Taylor 366 

286. The Union M. W. Ransom 367 

287. The South S. Caruthers 363 

288. Valedictory Address to the Senate Henry Clay 370 

2S9. Governor Morehead as a Lawyer W. L. Scott 371 

290. The Union and the Constitution A. J. Rogers 873 

291. The President and the Constitution M. Strouse 376 

292. The Radical Party in Congress F. P. Blair 377 

293. Altering the Virginia Constitution John Randolph 350 

294. Ultra Republicanism William Pinkney 881 

295. Bloody Brook Edward Everett 3S3 

296. The Weapon of Suffrage Edwin Forrest 3S4 

297. Cherish True Pride of Country D. M. Barringer 3S6 

298. The Treaty-Making Power William Pinkney SOT 



10 CONTENTS. 



PAGB 



299. The Results of Our Institutions Alexander H. Stephens 388 

800. Effects of Intemperance. Henry W. Miller 390 

301. The Dangers from Mobocracy H. L. Pinckney 392 

302. The Human Mind John Tyler ;. 393 

303. God in Creation .Rev. J. Henry Smith 395 

IP O E T R Y. 

304. Education St. George Tucker 397 

305. Immortality Richard H. Dana 398 

306. Marmion and the Douglas Walter Scott 399 

307. Sabbath Evening George D. Prentice 401 

30S. The Soul's Defiance Anonymous 402 

309. Night J. Montgomery. 403 

310. Liberty of Athens J. G. Percival. 405 

311. A Short Sermon Henry Ellen 406 

312. Home Again So. Lit. Messenger 408 

313. Dreams of My Childhood Anonymous 410 

314. Italy Edward C. Pinkney 411 

315. Song of the Stars W. C. Bryant 412 

316. The Mother of Washington Mrs. Sigourney 414 

317. Anthony and Cleopatra W. H. Lytle , 415 

318. Hugh Miller St. George Tucker 416 

319. Death of Dr. Kane John E. Cooke 418 

320. Deity So. Lit. Messenger 419 

321. The Wayside Cross on the Alps W. T. Wallis 422 

322. Spring-Time Rev. J. C. McCabe 423 

323. My Home is the World T. H. Bayly 424 

324. Pilgrimage of the Huguenots from France to ) 

„ 4 * ,. fW. T.Grayson 426 

South-Carolina ' 

325. Greece Estelle A. Lewis 427 

326. Character of Henry Clay J. R. Underwood 429 

327. The Wants of Man J. Q. Adams 430 

328. The Same— Continued " " 432 

329. The Same— Continued " " 434 

330. The Met-ta-wee Emeline S. Smith 436 

331. Cousins W. M. Praed 437 

332. Virginia Maria G. Buchanan 439 

333. Benedict Arnold W. Gilmore Simms 440 

334. Shipwreck by Drink Thomas Heywood 441 

335. The Woes of Modern Greece H. T. Farmer 442 

886. The American Eagle So. Religious Telegraph 444 

337. Calhoun W. Gilmore Simms 445 

333. Fhaving Anonymous 446 

889. Darkness Byron 413 

310. Dreaming— not Achieving So. Lit. Messenger 449 

841. Ambition N.P.Willis 451 

842. The Anthem of Heaven Philo Henderson 452 

Morning J. M. Lovejoy 453 

844. Washington George II. Calvert, ..,.„. 455 

846. The Color-Bearer Mrs. M. J. Preston 456 



CONTENTS. 11 



PAGE 

346. Raphael's Account of Creation Milton 459 

34T. The Dying Year Mrs. S. M. Chunn 440 

348. Pleasures of a Picnic Party (Humorous) Thomas Hood 462 

349. Launching of the Ship H. W. Longfellow 463 

350. Taste Akenside 466 

351. Major Brown (Humorous) Thomas Hood 467 

352. Love and Murder (Humorous) *. Anonymous 469 

353. The Last Man Campbell. 471 

DIALOGUES. 

354. Quarrel between Brutus and Cassius Shakespeare 473 

355. Banishment of Catiline S. Croly. 477 

356. Home and Love Miss Mitford 480 

357. Dress and Assurance Bronson's Elocution 482 

358. The Thing that's Right Anonymous 4S5 

359. From the Comedy of " Money " Bulwer 487 

360. Scene from Pizarro R. B. Sheridan 490 

361. Claudia Pleading for her Husband Miss Mitford 492 

362. Miller of Mansfield Anonymous 494 

863. Baffled Revenge Shakespeare 497 

^Li>i>E]sri> i x. 

Subjects for Composition 503 

Questions for Discussion 509 

Introduction to Declaration of Independence 514 

Declaration of Independence 514 

Constitution of the United States 518 

Washington's Farewell Address. 530 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

The figures opposite the names in the following Index designate the articles of which 
the person named is the author. 

ARTICLE 

Adams, Hon. John Q Mass 256, 327, 328, 329 

Aikin, John Eng 156 

A. J. C 120 

Akenside, Mark Eng 350 

Anderson, Hon. T. L Mo 30 

Atkinson, Rt. Rev. Thomas H N. C 29 

Avery, Hon. W. W N. C 19 

Anonymous. ... 2, 52, 57, 116, 128, 130, 146, 154, 158, 168, 242, 308, 313, 338, 352, 358, 362 

Badger, Hon. George E N. C 268 

Bayly, Thomas H Eng 424 

Baker, Rev. A N. C 53 

Baldwin, Hon. J. G Ala 39 

Barringer, Hon. D. M N. C 297 

Bascom, Rev. H. B Ky 72 



12 CONTENTS. 



ARTICLE 

Battle, Hon. W. H N. C 45 

Bell, Hon. John Tenn 25, 75 

Benjamin, Hon. J. P La 257 

Benton, Hon. T. H Mo 211, 223 

Berrien, Hon. J. M Ga 251 

Black, Hon. J. S Pa 229 

Blair, Gen. F. P Mo 292 

Bonner, John H N. C 138 

Breckinridge, Bon. J. J Ky 205 

Brown, Hon. A. G Miss 64, 77 

Bronson's Elocution 357 

Brougham, Lord Eng 262 

Bryant, W. C N. Y 100, 315 

Bulwer, Sir L Eng 359 

Buchanan, Maria G Mo. . . 332 

Burke, Hon. E Eng 263 

Butler, Hon. A. P S. C 88 

Butler, Rev. C. M., D.D Chap. U. S. Senate 212 

Byrne, Isabella R Md 132 

Byron, Lord Eng 339 

Calhoun, Hon. J. C S. C 23, 37, 225, 264 

Calvert, George H Md 344 

Campbell, Thomas Scot 147, 353 

Caruthers, Hon. S Mo 287 

Channing, W. E R. I 89, 90 

Charlton, Hon. R. M Ga 54 

Choate, Hon. Rufus Mass 258 

Chunn, Mrs. S. M N. C. . m 347 

Clarke, Mrs. M. B N. C 124 

Clark, James G N. Y 118 

Clark, W. G Pa 201 

Clay, Hon. Henry Ky 214, 224, 238, 270, 2S2, 2SS 

Clayton, Hon. J. M Del 188 

Clemens, Hon. Jeremiah Ala 13 

Cocke, Hon. W. M Tenn.. 248 

Cooke, John E Va 319 

Corwin, Hon. Thomas Ohio 221 

Craik, Rev. James, D.D Ky 255 

Creswell, Hon. A. J Md 35 

Crittenden, Hon. J. J Ky 271, 283 

Croly, S 355 

Curran, Hon. J. P Ir 3 

Dana, Richard II Mass. . 305 

Davis, lion. Jefferson Miss 186, 222 

Davis, Hon. George N. C 46, 183 

Davis, Rev. T. F N. C 42, 44, 235 

Dawson, Hon. G (Ja 209, 217 

Dawson, Hon. J. L Pa 192, 272 



CONTENTS. 13 



ARTICLE 

Dick, R. P., Esq N. C 67,81 

Dobbin, Hon. James C N. C 1, 162 

Doolittle, Hon. J. R Wis 236 

Douglas, Hon. S. A Ill 181 

Dwight, Rev. T., D.D Mass 193 

Eaton, Hon. William N. C 66, 74 

Ellen, Henry S. C 311 

Everett, Hon. Edward Mass 71, 200, 249, 275, 295 

Farmer, H. T S. C 335 

Field's Scrap Book 9 

Fielding, Henry Eng 157 

Forrest, Edwin Pa 296 

Garland, Hon. W. H La 175 

Garnett, Hon. M. R. H Va 78 

Gaston, Hon. William N. C 199, 219 

Gilman, Mrs Mass 117 

Gilmer, Hon. J. A N. C 266 

Gough, John B Eng 32, 80 

Graham, Hon. William A N. C 65 

Grayson, W. T S. C 324 

Grimke, T. S S. C 27S 

Hall, Rev. Robert Eng 55 

Hageman, W. W .-.- 231 

Hammond, Hon. J. H S. C 204 

Harcourt, A. P Ky 93 

Harris, Rev. T. M Mass 95 

Hayne, Hon. R. Y S. C ' 56,223 

Hayne, Paul H S. C 106, 131 

Haywood, Hon. W. H N. C 63 

Hemans, Mrs Eng 145 

Henderson, Philo N. C 342 

Henry, Patrick Va 216, 2S0, 2S1 

Herald, Virginia Va 6S 

Heywood, Thomas Eng 334 

Hill, Dr. John N. C 166 

Hilliard, Hon. H. W Ala 7,40, 62 

Hoffman, C. F N. Y 107 

Hoge, Rev. M. D., D.D Va 247 

Holmes, O. W Mass 10S 

Hood, Thomas Eng 343, 351 

Hooper, Rev. William, D.D N. C 253, 254 

Hope, J. Barron Va 125 

Houston, Hon. Samuel Texas 15 

Howe, Rev. George, D.D S. C 167 

Hunter, Hon. R. M. T Va 16, 197, 241 

Iredell, Hon. James N. C 51 



14 CONTENTS, 



ARTICLE 

Johnson, Hon. Andrew Tenn 17, 1T8 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel Eng 137 

Johnson, Hon. Reverdy Md . . . 207 

Keitt, Hon. L. M S. C 79 

Kelly, Hon. John N. Y 26 

Knowles, J. S It 114, 159 

Kossuth, Louis Hungary 190 

Lamar, Hon. M. B Texas. 261 

Land We Love N. C 151 

Lee, Hon. Richard H Va 259 

Legar6, Hon. H. S S. C 18,243 

Letcher, Hon. John Va 234 

Lewis, Estelle A Md 325 

Livingston, Hon. Edward N. Y 276 

Longfellow, H. W Me 349 

Lovejoy, J. M N. C 343 

Lumpkin, Hon. W Ga 84 

Lytle, Gen. W. H U.S. A 317 

Macaulay, Lord T. B Eng 8 

Mackay, Charles Eng 103 

Mackenzie, H .Scot. 10 

Magazine, Blackwood's Scot 110 

Magoon, Rev. E. L Va 59 

Manly, Hon. Charles N. C 173 

Marshall, Hon. T. P Ky. 218 

Mason, Hon. John Y Va 50, 53,76 

Mason, Hon. Jame^M Va 85, 187 

Mason, Rev. C, D.D N. Y 1S2 

Massillon Fr 194 

McCabe, Rev. J. C ...Va 322 

McDowell, Hon. James Va 11 

McDuffie, Hon. George S. 239, 252 

McPhail, Rev. G. W., D.D N. C 49 

Meagher, T. P Ir 83 

Meek, Hon. A. B Ala. 123 

Messenger, So. Lit Va. . 102, 113, 133, 139, 312, 320, 340 

Milford Bard 87 

Miller, Mrs. Mary A N. C 148 

Miller, Henry W. , Esq N. C 165, 267, 300 

Milman Eng 99 

Milton, John Eng 135, 143, 346 

Mitford, Miss M. R Eng 356, 361 

Montgomery, James Eng 309 

Moore, B. F., Esq N. C 43,169 

Moore, Thomas Ir 119 

Moore, Rev. T. V., D.D Va 171, 174, 180 

Morris, Hon. George P N. Y 41 

Murphey, Hon. A. D N. C 208 



CONTENTS. 15 



ARTICLE 

Nicholson, Hon. A, 0. P : . . . Tenn ; 61 

Nisbet, E. A . Pa 91 

Norton, Mrs Eng 93 

Nott, Rev. E., D.D N. Y 165 

Ogden, Hon. 0. N . . , La 230 

Osgood, Mrs Mass 104 

Otey, Rt. Rev. J. H., D.D Tenn 215 

Palmer, Rev. B. M., D.D , La. 164, 202 

Payson, Rev. Edward Me 195 

Percival, James G .Ct 126, 127, 310 

Perkins, Hon. John La 20 

Phillips, C .Ir 279 

Pickens, Hon. F. W S.«C 232 

Pike, Gen. Albert .Ark. . . 82, 163 

Pinckney, Hon. H. L S. C 5, 301 

Pinkney, Hon. W . . . . Md 6, 294, 298 

Pinkney, Edward G Md 314 

Plumer, Rev. W. S., D.D ...S. C 43 

Pollok, Robert Scot. 140 

Praed, W. M Eng 332 

Prentice, George D Ky 94, 142, 307 

Prentiss, Hon. S. S Miss 4, 36, 177, 2S4 

Preston, Mrs. M. J Va 105, 346 

Preston, Hon. William C. S. C 196 

Preston, Hon. L -. Ky 206 

Preuss, H. Clay 149 

Randolph, Hon. John Va 237, 274, 293 

Randolph, Hon. E . . . Ya 34 

Ransom, Mat. VV., Esq N. G 236 

Robinson, Rev. Stuart, D.D Ky 246 

Robinson, J. H Texas 152 

Rogers, Hon. A. J N. J -290 

Sands, Alexander H Ya 170 

Sargent, Epes Mass 153 

Saxe, J. G Yt 97, 150 

Saurin, Rev. James Fr 69 

Scott, W. L., Esq N. C 245, 239 

Scott, Sir Walter Scot 306 

Shakespeare, William Eng 136, 354, 363 

Shepard, Hon. W. B N. C 47, 70 

Shepard, James B N. C 250 

Sheridan, R. B Ir 100,360 

Sigourney , Mrs Ct 316 

Simms, W. Gilmore S. C 333, 337 

Smith, Emeline S N. Y 121, 330 

Smith, Moody B N. C 176 

Smith, Rev. J. Henry N. C 303 



1G CONTENTS. 



ARTICLE 

Southard, Hon. S. L N.J 210 

Stephens, Hon. Alexander H Ga 24, 265, 269,299 

Story, Hon. Joseph Mass 22, 220 

Strouse, Hon. M Pa 291 

Sturgus, Z. B 161 

Swift, Dean ...;... .Ir. 112 

Talmadge, Rev. Dr Ga 21 

Tallmadge, Hon. N. P. N. Y 233 

Taylor, Hon. Miles La 240 

Taylor, Hon. Mr Ohio 285 

Telegraph, So. Religious Ga 336 

Thornwell, Rev. J. H., D.D S. C 38 

Thompson, John R Va 122, 129 

Tirarod, Henry S. C 109, 115 

Toombs, Hon. Robert Ga 14 

Tribune, Portland Me 33 

Trippe, Hon. R. P Ga 2T 

Tucker, St. George Va Ill, 304, 318 

Tupper, M. F 96 

Tyler, Hon. John Va. 28, 302 

Underwood, Hon. J. R Ky 326 

Vance, Gov. Z. B N. C 172 

Voorhees, Hon. D. W Ind 213 

Wallace, William R Ky 141 

Wallis, W. T .Md 321 

Washington, General Va 227 

Watts, Isaac Eng 134 

Weaver, Rev. G. S 92 

Webb 260 

Webster, Hon. Daniel Mass 73, 86, 198, 244, 273 

Wellford, B. R. , Esq Va. 179 

White, Henry K Eng 101 

White, Alexander L Ala 277 

Willis, N. P N. Y 155, 341 

W r ingate, Rev. W. M N. C 184 

Winthrop, Hon. R. C Mass 189 

Wirt, Hon. William Va 12, 31 

Wise, Gov. Henry A Va 191 

Wright, J. G N. C 203 

Wright, Hon. Silas N. Y 226 

Young, Edward Eng 144 



PREFACE. 



The design of the present volume needs no explanation. The com- 
piler has had two oojects in view : First, to make a collection of short 
and spirited pieces, adapted to school and college declamation. Second, 
to furnish, for the most part, selections entirely new. He has long 
been satisfied that a new collection was desired by both teachers and 
students. 

While he has aimed to introduce nothing that is not excellent in 
itself, at the same time the number of authors represented has secured 
every variety of style in composition and declamation. The book may 
be also used as a Rhetorical Reader in the higher classes in schools and 
academies. 

The introduction differs little from that found in the higher Readers 
by the same author. This uniformity is designed. Only such addi- 
tional topics have been inserted as the peculiar object of this volume 
demanded. 

The body of the work is divided into two parts. 

Part I. is designed especially for the use of students in preparatory 
schools. The pieces are short and easily declaimed. 

Part II. contains longer articles, requiring more experience and 
^skill to declaim them properly. They are adapted to more advanced 
students. 

To aid inexperienced writers and debaters, he has added in the Ap- 
pendix a large collection of subjects for compositions, and questions for 
discussion. The utility of this addition is apparent to all who are fa- 
miliar with the difficulties encountered by youth in their first efforts at 



18 PREFACE. 

composition and debate. The Appendix also contains the Declaration 
of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and Washing- 
ton's Farewell Address. With these three documents eveiy American 
youth should be familiar. 

This work was undertaken from a desire to contribute something to 
the improvement of that part of education which is so much neglected. 
The extent to which it promotes this object will be the measure of its 
success 

To the young men of the South who are now preparing for future 
usefulness and distinction this work is respectfully dedicated by the 

AUTHOR. 

Greensboro, N. C. 



INTEODUOTION". 



The grand aim of a public speaker should "be, so to give utterance to 
his sentiments as to be understood, and at the same time impart to it 
all the force, beauty, and variety of which it is susceptible. 

In order to attain this, it becomes necessary for every student to 
secure the most perfect elocution possible. While it is true that a 
knowledge of the most elaborate system of elocution will not of itself 
produce an orator, any more than an acquaintance with the laws of 
harmony will produce a musician, still it has its legitimate use in the 
science of oratory as in any other department of knowledge. The stu- 
dent of music attains excellence by continually practising the instruc- 
tions received from books and teachers ; and the voice receives that 
training that enables it to pass from one note to another with ease, ex- 
pression, and elegance. Now, precisely what the musician aims to at- 
tain by study and practice, must the student of oratory accomplish by 
the very same means. 

In every age of the world the orator has exerted a powerful influ- 
ence upon the destinies of mankind. Upon the American student the 
study of oratory has peculiar claims. Under our system of government, 
the highest positions of power and influence are within the reach of all, 
and the demands for skil] in public speaking are so frequent, so vari- 
ous, and so imperative, and at the same time productive of so many 
personal advantages, that few will venture to deny that the study of 
oratory should form an important part of the training of American 
youth. If a young man intends to secure success in life, and attain 
distinction and influence among men, he should cultivate with special 
assiduity a correct and impressive elocution — the crowning grace of a 
liberal education. " The culture of the vocal organs should keep pace 
with the culture of his mental powers. While acquiring a knowledge 
of literature and science, he should also form the habit of expressing 
his thoughts with propriety, grace, ease, and elegance." 

Eloquence, however, does not consist exclusively in a good elocution. 
Elocution concerns only the external part of oratory, and may be con- 
sidered both as a science and an art. As a science, it teaches the prin- 
ciples from which are deduced rules for the effective delivery of what 
is eloquent in thought and language ; as an art, it is the actual embody- 
ing in delivery of every accomplishment, whether of voice or of ges- 
ture, by which oratorical excitement is superadded to the eloquence of 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

thought and language. In this last sense, it implies the cultivation 
of every external grace with which the delivery of language should be 
accompanied, whether in reading, recitation, or spontaneous utterance. 
As a science, then, it relates to the knowledge and the taste necessary 
to direct in the correct delivery of what is forcible in thought and ex- 
pression ; and as an art, to the ability practically to execute that which 
is dictated by a cultivated taste. 

It is not intended here to present a systematic treatise on the orator- 
ical art, but to furnish, as briefly as possible, such rules and suggestions 
as will aid the student in his efforts to attain this " crowning grace " of 
a complete education. 

Let it be borne in mind, however, that the parts of external oratory, as 
voice, look, gesture, are only instruments by which the soul acts ; when 
the inspiration of soul is absent, these instruments cannot produce 
eloquence. " One flash of passion on the cheek, one beam of feeling 
from the eye. one thrilling note of sensibility from the tongue, have 
a thousand times more value than any exemplification of mere rules 
where feeling is absent." All suggestions on this subject presuppose 
the existence of genius, mental discipline, and elevation of moral sen- 
timent. 

The parts of Oratory to be considered in their order are, Articulation, 
Inflection, Accent, Emphasis, Modulation, Pauses, and Gesture. 

ARTICULATION. 

Articulation is the art of uttering distinctly and properly the letters 
and syllables constituting a word. Without a clear and faithful artic- 
ulation, there can be no good elocution. Distinctness of articulation 
contributes more than mere loudness of sound to an audible and intel- 
ligible delivery. As soon as the student begins to read, he should be 
taught to enunciate his words with a full, round, clear voice. 

For the benefit of youthful pupils who have not used the primary 
books of this series, I annex the following exercises on the elementary 
sounds of the language, upon which depends the clear and distinct ar- 
ticulation of words. 

ELEMENTARY VOWEL SOUNDS. 

A has five principal sounds : 

1. As in fate, make, pave, awake. 

2. As in fat, lamp, flag, decamp. 

3. As in far, cart, bark, carpenter. 

4. As in fall, salt, bald, befall. 

5. as in care, snare, dare, fare. 
JEJho.8 four principal sounds: 

1. As in mete, legal, fever, cedar. 

2. As in met, bet, pebble, bench. 

3. As in her, jerk, stern, subvert. 

4. As in there, where, e'er. 
/ has four principal sounds: 

1. As in pine, hive, kite, viper. 

2. As in pin, chin, hill, linen. 

3. As in sir, girl, bird, extirpate. 

4. As in machine, caprice, magazine. 



INTRODUCTION . 21 

has six principal sounds : 

1. As in no, tone, droll, noble. 

2. As in not, bond, shop, robber. 

3. As in nor, born, storm, corpulent. 

4. As in move, tooth, approval. 

5. As in done, love, monk, mother. 

6. As in wolf, took, woman. 
U has five principal sounds : 

1. As in tube, duke, pure, human. 

2. As in tub, drum, tuft, bundle. 

3. As in fur, surf, turk, concur. 

4. As in fall, push. 

5. As in rude, conclude, pollute. 
T has three principal sounds : 

1. As in type, my, tyrant, lyre. 

2. As in hymn, strychnine. 

3. As in myrrh, myrtle. 

W has the sound of u long, as in new. 

These vowels have also what is called the slight or obscure sound ; 
and in some words derived from foreign languages retain the sounds 
peculiar to those languages. 

A union of two vowels in one sound is called a diphthong ; as oi in 
oil, oy 'in boy, ou in round, ow in cow. 

A union of three vowels in one sound is called a triphthong ; as eau 
in beau. 



ELEMENTARY CONSONANT SOUNDS. 

B has but one sound, as in bad, ball, robber, mob. After m and 
before t it is silent ; dumb, lamb, debt, listen. 

G has two sounds : the hard, like k in call, colt, cottage ; and the soft, 
like s, as in cell, cider, cymbal. It has the hard sound before a, o, u, I, 
r, and t, as in case, cob, cure, clean, cry, strict ; the soft sound before 
e, i, and y, as in cell, tacit, cypress. At the end of a word it is always 
hard, as in music ; and before k it is silent, as in back, thick. 

D has one sound, as in day. At the end of a word, after a silent e, 
it sometimes has the sound of t, as fixed, pronounced fixt. 

i^has one sound, as in fat ; except in of it has the sound of v. 

G has two sounds : it is hard before the letters a, o, u, I, and r, and 
at the end of a word, as in gate, go, gun, glad, grow, bag ; and gen- 
erally soft before e, i, and y, as in gem, giant, gypsum. Before m and n 
it is silent, as in gnaw, phlegm. 

His merely a breathing, as in hate. It is silent at the beginning of 
many words, and generally after g and r ; and at the end of a word, 
when preceded by a vowel. 

iThas the sound of c hard. Before n it is always silent, as in knife, 

L has one sound, as in hill. It is often silent. 

M has one sound, as in man. 

AT has two sounds : the simple, as in not ; and the nasal, as in finger, 
sink. 

P has one sound, as in pin. Before n, s, and t, at the beginning of a 
word, it is silent. 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

Q has but one sound. It is always followed by U, and has the sound 
of k or kw, as in coquette, queen. 

R has two sounds : the rough, as in run ; and the smooth, as in arm. 

S has two principal sounds : the sharp, as in hiss ; and the flat, like z, 
as in his, rise. It has also the sound of sh, as in sure, and of zh, as in 
measure. 

T has one principal sound, as in not. When followed by ia, ie, and 
io, it often combines with the i, and has the sound of sh, as in partial, 
patient, nation. 

V has one sound, as in vine. 

W, at the beginning of a word or syllable, is a consonant, and is 
silent before r, as write, bewray. 

X has three sounds : like ks in wax, gs in exalt, and z in Xerxes. 

T, when a consonant, has one sound, as in yet. 

Z has one principal sound, as in zone. It sometimes has the sound 
of zh, as in azure. 

Ch has three sounds : like tsh in chain,- like sh in machine, and like 
k in chord. 

Gh has three sounds : like g in ghost, like / in cough, and like k in 
hough. 

The letters ough have a variety of dissimilar sounds, as may be seen 
in the following stanza : 

Tis not an easy task to show 
How ough sounds ; since, though 
An Irish lough and English slough, 
And cough and hiccough, all allow, 
Differ as much as though and through, 
There seems no reason why they do. 

Ph generally has the sound of/, as in physic; in Stephen it has the 
sound of v. 

Th has two sounds : the hard or aspirate, as in thin ; and the soft or 
flat, as in this. 

Wh is sounded as if written hw, as in when, whip. 

The following table of Tonics, Subtonics, and Atonies, as arranged by 
Dr. Rush, is annexed for the use of pupils of more matured capacities : 

TONICS. 

Tonics are elementary sounds, which have a distinct and proper tone, 
capable of being prolonged by the voice indefinitely. They are : 

A 1 as in make, I s as in hill. 

A 2 u lamp. O 1 " tone. 

A 8 " bark. O 2 " not. 

A 4 " fall. O 3 " storm. 

A 5 " snare. O 4 " move. 

E 1 " legal. U 1 " duke. 

E 2 " met. U 2 " drum. 

E 3 " stern. U 3 « turk. 

E 4 " there. U 4 " full. 

I 1 " hive. 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

The Diphthongal Tonics axe : 

Ai as in ail. Ou as in oud. 

Oi as in oil. Io as in union. 

SUBTONICS. 

Subtonics have an independent sound of their own, but inferior to 
the tonics in fulness and power. They are : 

B as in bat. R as in rag. 

D as in dark. V as in vat. 

(x as in gun. Was in work. 

J as in judge. Y as in yet. 

L as in lull. Z as in zeal. 

M as in man. Ng as in English. 

N as in nun. Th as in them. 
Zk. as in azure. 

ATONICS. 

Atonies have no independent tone, and are uttered by a mere im- 
pulsion of the breath. They are : 

F as in fight. M as in mind 

P as in pit. N as in now. 

T as in task. L as in lily. 

K as in kid. Ch as in chat. 

S as in same. Sh as in shame. 

H as in hand. Th as in thin. 

R as in ride. Wh as in when. 

Frequent exercises on these elementary sounds will be found of 
great advantage to the student of elocution. 

Common errors in articulation may be avoided by observing the fol- 
lowing rules : 

Rule I. — Do not omit or obscure the sound of unaccented vowels in a 
word or syllable ; as, B'lief for belief ; hist'ry for history ; sep'rate for 
separate ; mem'ry for memory; particular for particular ; 'pear for 
appear ; ev'dent for evident 

Rule II. — Sound distinctly tlie consonants at the end of a word or 
syllable. 

Much of the indistinctness of articulation is caused by the neglect 
of this rule. The following are examples ; as : 

Readin' for reading ; sicif'ly for swiftly ; an' for and ; ban' for band; 
comman's for commands ; weps* for weptst ; thrus' for thrusts. 

Rule III.-— Avoid the substitution of one sound for another ; as> 
Wilier for willow ; produx for products; com-per-tent for competent ; 
mem-er-y for memory ; win-e-gar for vinegar ; tem-per-it for temperate ; 
chil-drin for children ; par-tic-er-lar for particular. 

Rule IV. — Avoid blending the last syllable of a word icith tlie first 
syllable of the next. 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

Examples. 

A t anchor la dremofro mome. 
At anchor laid remote from home. 
Here — res e zed upon th' lapper verth, 
A youth tofor turnan tofa munknown. 
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, 
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown. 

An indistinct articulation not only mars the beauty, but often per- 
verts the meaning, of a passage. 

Examples. 

Whom ocean feels through all her countless waves. 
Who motion feels through all her countless waves. 
He was trained in the religion of his fathers. 
He was strained in the religion of his fathers. 
My brothers ought to owe nothing. 
My brothers sought to owe nothing 
He built an ice house. 
He built a nice house. 

EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. 

The flag of freedom floats once more aloft . 

His shrivelled limbs were shivering with the cold. 

Bound the rough and rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory. 

He spoke disinterestedly, reasonably, philosophically. 

His falchion flashed along the Nile, 
His hosts he led through Alpine snows ; 

O'er Moscow's towers that blazed the while, 
His eagle flag unrolled and froze. 

From peak to peak, the racing crags among, 
Leaps the live thuweZer ; not/rom one lone cloud ; 
But every mountam wow hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers /rom her misty s/iroud, 
Back to the joyous Kips, which call to her aloud. 

Thou that 6\ost scare the world with tempests set on fire, 

ne heavens with falling tf^underbofts, or fill's^ 
The swift dark whirlwind that uproot the woods, 
Where is the mortal, that forged not at the sight 
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power 
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by ? 

And first one universal shriek there rushed, 

Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 
Of echoing thunder ; and then — all was hushed, 

Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 
Of billows : but at intervals there gushed, 

Accompanied with a convulsive splash, 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry 
Of some strong swimmer in his agony. 

When the world is dark with tempests, when thunders roll and light- 
nings fly, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the 
storm. 

INFLECTION. 

Inflections are the bendings or slides of the voice, upward or down- 
ward, in reading or speaking. 

There are two inflections : the rising, marked (') ; as, Did you speak' ? 
And the falling, marked (') ; as, I did speak'. Sometimes both these 
inflections occur in the same question ; as, Will you go' or stay' ? In 
general, the rising inflection denotes that the sense is incomplete ; 
the falling, that it is complete. These slides may be exhibited in 

writing the word as follows : Did you say N> S 

• or 



Does he read cor-^-^- 




If you said yes, I said no. 
To be read thus : 

If you said y e y I said 



e 

In the following sentences, the first member has the rising, and the 
second the falling, inflection : 

Is he rich', or is he poor' ? 

Will the wounded man live', or will he die' ? 

Did you say Europe', or Asia* ? 

Shall I say plain', or pain* ? 

Blessed' are the poor in spirit* ; blessed' are the meek* ; blessed' are 
the peace-makers'. 

Let your light so shine before men', that they may see your good 
works', and glorify your Father' which is heaven*. 

In the following sentences, the first takes the falling, and the second 
the rising, inflection : 

He acted properly', not improperly'. 

He is well', not sick'. 

He talked rationally', not irrationally'. 

He said turn', not urn'. 

He went home', not abroad'. 

Who knoweth the power of thine anger' ? Even according to thy 
fear', so is thy wrath'. 

Though these marks always indicate the same kind of inflection, 
they by no means show the extent of the rise or fall. In some the 
voice has a very slight, and in others a very marked, upward or down- 
ward movement, depending upon the nature of the sentiment expressed. 
No definite rules can be given for the extent of the inflection. We 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

must in all cases be guided by the intent of the utterance, rather than 
by its rhetorical form. 

RISING INFLECTION. 

Eule I. — Direct questions, or those ichich can be answered by yes or 
no, require the rising inflection ; but their answers, the falling. 

Examples. — Will you lend me those books' ? Yes\ 

Does the law condemn him' ? It does not*. 

Is he the God of the Jews only' ? is He not also of the Gentiles' ? 
Yes\ of the Gentiles also*. 

Does the gentleman suppose it is in his power', to exhibit in Caro- 
lina a name so bright' as to produce envy' in my bosom ? 

What ! while our arms can wield those blades', 

Shall we die tamely' ? die alone' ? 
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens, 
To wash this crimson hand as white as snow' ? 

Exception. — If these questions are repeated with peculiar emphasis, 
they take the falling inflection. 

Example.— Where did you find these flowers*? In the lawn*. 
Where did you say* ? In the lawn'. 

When, however, a word or sentence is repeated as a kind of interro- 
gatory exclamation, the rising inflection is used according to the 
rule. 

Example. — He is called the friend* of virtue. The friend' ! ay ! the 
enthusiastic lover*, the elevated protector* rather. 

Rule II. — The pause of suspension, in incomplete sentences, generally 
takes the bising inflection. 

Examples. — The young', the healthy', and the prosperous' should not 
presume on their advantages 1 . 

To sit up late at night', to use intoxicating drinks', and to indulge 
evil passions', are things not permitted in this school. 

His adventures', his toils', his privations', his sufferings', his hair- 
breadth escapes', and his struggles for victory and liberty', are all 
remembered. 

Note. — Direct address made to a person or thing falls under this 
rule ; as, 

Officers', soldiers', friends', Americans', our country must be free. 

Fathers' ! we meet again in council. 

Rule III. — Expressions of tenderness, as of grief or kindness, com- 
monly take the rising inflection. 

Examples. — O my son Absalom', my son', my son Absalom' ! would 
to God I had died for thee', Absalom', my son', my son ! 

O noble friend' ! Thy self-denial is wonderful' ! Thy deeds of char- 
ity are innumerable' ! 'Never will I forget thee' ! 

Then Judah came near unto him, and said', O my lord', let thy ser- 
vant', I pray thee', speak a word in my lord's ears', and let not thine 
anger burn against thy servant', for thou art even as Pharaoh v 

FALLING inflection. 

Rule IV. — Questions ichich cannot be answered by yes or no take the 
falling inflection. 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

Examples. — How many lessons have you learned' ? Three*. 

When did he go* ? Yesterday\ 

Whither have you led me v ? and to whom do these beautiful crea- 
tures belong* ? 

Who said, " A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone N " ? 
Swift*. 

Note.— Answers to questions, when expressive of indifference, gener- 
ally take the rising inflection. 

Example. — Which do you prefer ? I have no choice'. 

Etjle V. — The falling inflection is generally used when the sense is 
complete. 

Examples. — Men generally die as they live* ! Keep thy heart with 
all diligence* ! 

Do not flatter yourself with the hope of perfect happiness*. There 
is no such thing in this world*. 

The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence\ Swarms 
of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air*. The insect youth 
are on the wing*. 

Note. — As a sentence generally ends with the falling inflection, the 
rising inflection is employed at the penultimate pause, or the last 
pause but one, in order to promote harmony and variety of sound. 

Example. — The changing seasons declare the knowledge*, power*, 
wisdom', and goodness^ of Grod. 

Rule VI. — Language expressive of strong emotion, as of anger or 
surprise, of authority or reproach, requires the falling inflection. 

Examples. — Begone\ 

Run* to your houses, fall* upon your knees. 

fools* ! and slow of heart* to believe all that the prophets* have 
written concerning me* ! 

Rule VII. — An emphatic succession of particulars and emphatic repe- 
tition require the falling inflection. 

Examples. 

Hail* holy light* ! offspring* of heaven first born. 
The tear*, 

The groan*, the knell*, the bier*, 

And all we know* or dream* or fear*, 

Of agony, are thine. 
To arms v ! they come* ! the Greek v ! the Greek* ! 

1 insist* upon this point* ; I urge* you to it ; I press* it, demand* it 

BOTH INFLECTIONS. 

Rule VIII. — When questions are connected fry on used disjunctively, 
the first requires the rising, and the second the falling inflection. 

Examples. — Does Napoleon merit praise' or censure* ! 

Is the book yours' or mine* ? 

Shall we return to our allegiance while we may do so with safety 
and honor', or shall we wait until the axe of the executioner is at our 
throats s ? 



28 INTRODUCTION". 

Rule IX. — When words or clauses are contrasted or compared, the 
first part usually has the rising, and the last the falling inflection. 

Examples. — I have seen the effects of love' and hatred *, joy' and 
grief \ hope' and despair *. 

To be' or not to be*, that is the question. 

There are also celestial' bodies, and bodies terrestrial* ; bnt the glory 
of the celestial v is one', and the glory of the terrestrial' is another *. 

The style of Dry den is capricious and varied' ; that of Pope is cau- 
tious and uniform*. Dry den obeys the motions of his own mind' ; 
Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition*. Dry den is 
sometimes vehement and rapid' ; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and 
gentle*. 

Note. — When one of the members of such clauses is negative and 
the other affirmative, generally the negative has the rising, and the 
affirmative the falling inflection. 

Examples. — Show your knowledge by your deeds*, not by your 
words'. 

You were paid to fight* against Alexander, not to rail at him'. 

Let us retract while we can*, not when we must/ 

CIRCUMFLEX. 

Circumflex is the union of the two inflections on the same word, 
beginning either with the falling and ending with the rising called 
the rising circumflex ; or beginning with the rising, and ending with 
the falling, called the falling circumflex. 

Rule X. — The circumflex is mainly employed in the language of 
irony, and in expressing ideas, implying some condition either expressed 

or understood. 

« 

Example. — He is a rare pattern of humanity. 
Queen. — Hamlet, you have your father much offended. 
Hamlet. — Madam, you have my father much offended. 
Man never is, but always to be, blest. 

They follow an adventurer whom they fear ; we serve a monarch • 
whom we love. 

series. 

A succession of particulars is called a series. When at the begin- 
ning of a sentence, it is called a Commencing Series ; when at the end 
of a sentence, it is called a Concluding Series. 

Rule XL — In general, the rules for inflection are to be observed. But 
for the sake of variety the last particular but one has the inflection oppo- 
site to the last. 

Examples. — My friends', my family*, and relations are all dead. 

For our health', life', possessions', connections*, and pleasures', there 
are causes of decay imperceptibly working. 

The verdant lawn*, the shady grove*, the variegated landscape*, the 
starry firmament*, and the boundless ocean', all tend to inspire us with 
a love of nature', and of nature's (jod*. 



INTRODUCTION. 29 



PARENTHESIS. 

Rule XII. — Subordinate clauses and clauses in parenthesis are gen- 
erally spoken in a lower tone and more rapidly than the rest of the sen- 
tence. They should terminate with the same inflection that next pre- 
cedes it. 

Examples. — 1. God is my witness', (whom. I serve with my spirit, in 
the gospel of his Son',) that, without ceasing, I make mention of you 
always in my prayers, making request', (if, by any means, now, at 
length, I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God',) to 
come unto you. 

2. When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still ; and 
laying his left hand upon his breast', (a slender, white staff with which 
he journeyed being in his right',) he introduced himself with the little 
story of his convent. 

MONOTONE. 

Monotone is the absence of inflection. It is denoted by a straight 
mark "~" over the word. It is confined chiefly to grave and solemn 
subjects, and, when properly employed, gives great dignity to delivery. 

Examples. — Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of 
trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down. He fleeth 
as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stated 

I hail thee, as in gorgeous robes, 
Blooming, thou leav'st the chambers of the east, 
Crowned with a gemmed tiara thick embossed 
With studs of living light. 

ACCENT. 

Accent is the peculiar force given to one or more syllables of a word. 
The accent is usually marked thus ('). 

As a general rule, custom is our only guide in ascertaining the 
accented syllable. However, many words or parts of speech, having 
the same form, are distinguished by accent alone. 

Examples. 
Ab'sent — not present. Absent' — to withdraw, stay away. 

Au'gust — a month. August' — grand. 

Gallant — brave. Gallant' — a gay fellow. 

Adjectives and verbs are often distinguished from nouns by their 
accent; as, 

Desert' — the verb. Des'ert — the noun. 

Cement 7 " " Cem'ent " " 

Accent' " " Ac'cent " " 

The ordinary accent of words is sometimes changed by a contrast in 
the sense, or to express opposition of thought". 

Examples. — He must in'crease, but I must de'crease. 
I did not say a new ad'dition, but a new e'dition. 
Consider well what you have done, not what you have left un'done. 
This corruptible must put on in' corruption ; and this mortal must 
put on im'mortality. 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

EMPHASIS. 

Emphasis is the stress of voice by which one or more words of a 
sentence are distinguished above the rest. This increased stress is, 
generally, not upon the whole word, but only on the accented syl- 
lable. 

Emphatic words are often printed in italics; those still more em- 
phatic, in capitals. By the proper use of emphasis, we are able to 
impart animation and interest to conversation and reading. Its im- 
portance cannot be overestimated, as the meaning of a sentence often 
depends upon the proper placing of the emphasis. Accent, inflection, 
and, indeed, every tiling, yields to emphasis. 

Blair furnishes the following illustration of the 'importance and 
nature of emphasis : 

Did you walk into the city yesterday? Ans. — No, my brother 
went. 

Did you walk into the city yesterday ? Ans. — No, I rode. 

Did you walk into the city yesterday ? Ans. — No, I went into the 
country. 

Did you walk into the city yesterday f Ans. — No, I went the day 
before. 

There are two kinds of emphasis : Absolute and Relative. 

ABSOLUTE EMPHASIS. 

Absolute emphasis is used to designate the important word of a 
sentence without any direct reference to other words. 

Examples. — I shall know but one country. 

The ends I aim at shall be my Country's, my God's, and Truth's. 

Speak out, my friends ; would you exchange it for the Demon's 
drink, Alcohol ? A shout, like the roar of a tempest, answered 

"Nor 

Oh, now you weep ; and I perceive you feel the dint of pity : these 
are gracious drops. Kind souls ! What, weep you when you but behold 
our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look ye here ! Here is himSELF, 
marred, as you see, by traitors. 

As Caesar loved me, I weep for him : as he was fortunate, I rejoice at 
it : as he was valiant, I honor him ; but as he was ambitious, I slew 
him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his 
valor, and death for his ambition. 

relative emphasis. 

Words are often emphasized in order to exhibit the idea they 
express, as compared or contrasted with some other idea. This is 
Ju lalive Emphasis. 

Examples. — Living, I shall assert it : dying, I shall assert it. 

It is much better to be injured than to injure. 

Without were fightings, within were fears. 

The young are slaves to novelty : the old, to custom : the middle-aged, 
to both : the dead, to neither. 

The wicked flee when no man pursueth ; but the righteous are bold 
as a lion. 



INTRODUCTION', 31 

It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my 
dying sentiment ; independence now, and independence forever. 
Ye worship ye know not what ; we know what we worship. 

Set honor in one eye, and death in the other, 
And I will look upon both indifferently. 

Religion raises men above themselves ; irreligion sinks them beneath 
the brutes, 

MODULATION. 

Modulation is the act of varying the voice in reading or speaking, 
as the subject or the emotions of the speaker demand. Among its 
more important divisions we enumerate Pitch, Force, Quality, and 
Rate. 

By close attention to ordinary conversation, we will discover that 
scarcely any two words are uttered in the same tone. They vary from 
some one point, ascending or descending like the notes of the scale in 
music. This is called the key-note. The position of the key-note varies 
in the scale according to the subject and the emotion of the speaker. 
It may be High, Middle, or Low. 

The degree in which the pitch is changed, and also the direction of 
that change, whether high or low, must depend in a great degree on 
the taste and judgment of the reader. Alow key is naturally adapted 
to the expression of solemnity, reverence, aw T e, fear, sadness, or when 
under the influence of any depressing passion. The high key is used 
in calling a person at a distance, or when the speaker is under the in- 
fluence of strong passion, as in levity, joy, boldness, anger. The 
middle key is adapted to simple narrative, and is used to express 
ordinary thought and moderate emotion. Any continued address in 
the same tone should be avoided. 

Rule I. — Let the reader or speaker choose that key-note most natural 
and easy to himself and above and below which he has most room for 
variation. 

Rule II. — Avoid monotony, or the continuation of the same tone 
throughout the sentence. 

This is one of the greatest and most common faults in elocution. 

It is proper to remark, however, that sometimes sentences occur 
that require a violation of this rule, as the following from Job : " In 
thoughts from the visions of the night, wdien deep sleep falleth on 
men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to 
shake." 

Rule III. — Avoid an abrupt transition from a low to a high pitch 
when the language and sentiment do not warrant it. 

There is sometimes a regular sort of variation which has no connec- 
tion with the sense. A sentence is commenced vehemently, and then 
the voice tapers down w r ord by word till it reaches an almost inaudible 
pitch. A similar fault is often seen in the sing-song habit so common 
in reading poetry, where the variation has no reference to the sense. 

Rule IV. — The tones of the voice should always correspond with the 
nature of the subject. 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

Thus, persuasion requires soft, insinuating tones : command, full and 
strong tones ; anger, harsh, irregular, and sometimes grating tones ; 
pity and sorroic, soft and plaintive tones. 

All the errors in tone which have been mentioned will be avoided, if 
the reader, guided by the sense, gives that emphasis, inflection, and ex- 
pression which are necessary to bring out the full meaning of his 
author. 

The human voice is susceptible of almost unlimited improvement 
in strength, compass, and flexibility. And the student must, if he 
would become perfect in the art of elocution, give it that time and 
attention which its importance demands. 

Examples. 

HIGH PITCH. 

Go ring the bells, and fire the guns, 

And fling the starry banners out ; 
Shout " Freedom !" till your lisping ones 

Give back their cradle shout. 

Joy, joy forever! my task is done, 

The gates are passed, and heaven is won ! 

Oh, am I not happy ! I am, I am ! 

Up drawbridge, grooms ! what, warder, ho ! 
Let the portcullis fall ! 

And Miriam answered them, Sing unto the Lord, for he hath tri- 
umphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the 
sea. 

MIDDLE PITCH. 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea , 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 

And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

When the sun rises or sets in the heavens, when spring paints the 
earth, when summer shines in its glory, when autumn pours forth its 
fruits, or winter returns in its awful forms, we view the Creator mani- 
festing himself in his works. 

LOW PITCH. 

'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now 

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 

The bells' deep tones are swelling ; 'tis the knell 

Of the departed year. 

I have but few words to say. I am going to my cold and silent 
grave. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished ; my race is run ; the 
grave opens to receive mo, and I sink into its bosom. 

FORCE. 

Force has reference to the volume or loudness of voice. Loudness 
of sound docs not always imply n high pitch or key. A person may 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

speak with great force in a very low key, and very softly in a high one. 
The variations of force may be considered as three : the Soft, Middle, 
and Loud. 

The Soft is used to express caution, secresy, fear without guilt, 
mournfulness, despondency, and deep emotion. 

Example. 

Tread softly — bow the head — 

In reverent silence bow — 
No passing bell doth toll, 
Yet an immortal soul 

Is passing now. 

TheJUoderate is used in ordinary assertion, narration, and description. 

Example. — A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in 
the wrong ; which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day 
than he was yesterday. 

The Loud is used to express vehement emotion and violent passion. 

Example. 

And once again — 
Hear me, ye wails, that echoed to the tread 
Of either Brutus ! once again I swear 
The eternal city shall be free ! 

Adoration, admiration, solemnity, sublimity, dignity, require low, 
loud, slow tones ; revenge, loud aspirated tones ; courage, high, loud, 
and slow tones. 

QUALITY. 

Quality has reference to the kind of tone used in speaking. They 
are the Pure, the Orotund, the Aspirated, and the Guttural tones. 

The Pure Tone is a clear, smooth, full, flowing sound, accompanied 
with moderate pitch. This is appropriate to ordinary narrative, to joy, 
gayety, love, pathos, tranquillity, etc. 

Example. — How many bright eyes grow dim, how many soft cheeks 
grow pale, how many lovely forms sink into the tomb, and none can 
tell the cause that blighted their loveliness. 

There is joy in the mountain — the bright waves leap 
Like a bounding stag when he breaks from sleep ; 

Mirthfully, wildly they flash along — 

Let the heavens ring with song ! 

The Orotund Tone is a full, round, mellow, swelling tone of voice* 
It is peculiarly appropriate to sublimity, pathos, solemnity, rever- 
ence, etc. 

Example. 

'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now 

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 

The bells' deep tones arc swelling ; 'tis the knell 

Of the departed year ! 



34 INTRODUCTION. 

The Aspirated Tone is an abrupt, rough tone, produced by an ex- 
pulsion of the breath with more or less strength. It is used to express 
terror, amazement, horror, anger, revenge, remorse, and despair. 

Examples. 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a sounding knell ! 
But ill this taper burns ! Ha ! who comes here ? 
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, 
That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stand ? 
Speak to me what thou art ! 

The Guttural Tone is a deep, suppressed tone, used to express aver- 
sion, hatred, loathing, and contempt. 

Examples. 

Ho ! cravens ! do ye fear him ? 

Slaves! traitors! have ye flown'? 
Ho ! cowards ! have ye left me 

To meet him here alone ? 

Thou worm ! thou viper ! to thy native earth 
Return ! Away ! thou art too base for man 
To tread upon ! Thou scum ! Thou reptile ! 

PAUSES. 

Pauses are suspensions of the voice, used in readingypd speaking to 
attract attention to the emphatic idea, or to give the mind time to 
dwell upon it and give effect to the expression. 

There are three kinds of pauses, the Grammatical pause, and Rhetor- 
ical pause, which belong to both prose and poetry, and the Poetic 
pause, which is peculiar to poetry. 

The subject of Grammatical pauses has already been discussed in 
other volumes of this Series, and need not be here repeated. 

KHETOBICAI4 PAUSES. 

The Bhetorical Pauses occur chiefly before or after an emphatic word 
or phrase, and sometimes both before and after. No rule can be given 
for the length of these pauses. The correct taste of the reader must 
determine it. 

Pauses should generally be made in the following cases : 

1. Before a compound nominative, and of ter a nominative consisting 
of a single word when emphatic ; as, 

• Joy and sorrow — move him not. 

Prosperity — gains friends, but adversity — tries them. 

2. Before a relative clause, or clause equivalent to a relative ; as, 
This is the man — that loves me. 

Hypocrisy is the tribute — paid by vice to virtue. 

3. A pause is required after words which are in apposition or opposi- 
tion to each other ; as, 

Solomon — the son of David — was king of Israel. 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

False delicacy is affectation — not politeness. 

4. Before a conjunction or conjunctive adverb ; as, 

But — it was reserved for Arnold — to blend all these bad qualities 
into one. 

5. Before an infinitive mood, especially when equivalent to a clause ; as, 
He smote me with a rod — to please my enemy. 

6. A pause is required when an ellipsis takes place ; as, 

To your faith add virtue ; to virtue — knowledge ; to knowledge — 
temperance ; to temperance — patience. 

7. When a pari of a sentence is out of the natural order ; as, 
In adversity — men are tried. 

8. After each word of an emphatic phrase ; as, 

Shall we try argument ? Sir, we have been trying that for the last 
—ten — years. 

These rules, though important if properly applied, are by no means 
complete ; nor can any be invented that are adapted to all the compli- 
cated relations of thought. The correct taste of the speaker will enable 
him to determine both when the rhetorical pause shall be used, and 
the duration of the suspension of voice. 

POETICAL PAUSE. 

In reading poetry, the spirit and meaning of a sentence should never 
be sacrificed to a mechanical adherence to pauses of structure. The 
slight pause at the end of each line, which renders prominent the 
melody, should never be so decided as to attract attention from the 
sense to the rhythm. 

There is another important pause near the middle of each line, called 
the caiswra, or csesural pause. The following lines will show this pause : 

Of all the causes — which conspire to blmd 
Man's erring judgment — and mislead the mind, 
What the weak head — with strongest bias rules, 
Is pride— the never-failing vice of fools. 
The csesural pause should never be so placed as to injure the sense, 
even to promote harmony. 

Sometimes, where the sense requires it, tico csesural pauses are pro- 
per; as, 

Soldier, rest ! — thy warfare o'er, 

Sleep the sleep — that knows no breaking ; 
Dreani — of battle-fields — no more, 
Days of danger — nights of waking. 

Sometimes three ca?sural pauses are admissible, the first and third 
being slight, and are called demi-ca?sural. The following lines afford 
an example : 

Our bugles-sang truce — for the night cloud-had lowered^ 

And the sentinel stars — set their watch — in the sky ; 
And thousands-had sunk — on the ground-overpowered ; 
The weary-to sleep — and the wounded-to die, 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

Examples. 

O Muse ! — the causes and the crimes relate ; 

What goddess was provoked — and whence her hate, 

For what offence — the queen of heaven began 

To persecute so brave — so just a man ; 

Involved his anxious life — in endless cares, 

Exposed to wants — and hurried into* wars ! 

Can heavenly minds — such high resentment show, 

Or exercise their spite — in human woe ! 

O Sacred Truth ! — thy triumph ceased awhile, 
And Hope, thy sister — ceased with thee to smile, 
When leagued Oppression — poured to northern wars 
Her whiskered pandoors — and her fierce hussars, 
Waved her dread standard — to the breeze of morn, 
Pealed her loud drum — and twanged her trumpet horn ; 
Tumultuous horror — brooded o'er her van, 
Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man ! 
Warsaw's last champion — from her height surveyed, 
Wide o'er her fields — a waste of ruin laid. 
O heaven ! he cried — my bleeding country save ; 
Is there no hand on high — to shield the brave ? 
Rout, though destruction — sweep these lovely plains ! 
Rise, fellow-men ! — our country yet remains ! 
By that dread name — we wave the sword on high, 
And swear-for her to live — with her-to die ! 

In slumbers-of midnight — the sailor-boy lay, 
His hammock-swung loose — at the sport-of the wind ; 
But watch-worn-and weary — his cares-flew away, 
And visions-of happiness — danced-o'er his mind. 

She said-and struck ; — deep entered-in her side 
The piercing steel — with reeking purple dyed ; 
Clogged-in the wound — the cruel-weapon stands, 
The spouting blood — came streaming o'er her hands 
Her sad attendants — saw the deadly stroke, 
And with loud cries — the sounding palace shoom 

In reading or repeating poetry, great care should be taken to avoid 
nil appearance of affectation. Every syllable should have the same 
accent, and every word the same emphasis, as in prose. Accent and 
emphasis must never be sacrificed for the sake of melody. If the 
author has made his verse deficient in melody, the defect cannot be 
remedied by the speaker. The word wind, for example, should never 
have the long sound given to the i, so as to make it rhyme with mind. 
Poets frequently write what are called imperfect rhymes. No one will 
contend that tea, in the last line of the following couplet, should be 
pronounced tct/y : 

Where thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, 
Dost sometimes eounse] take, and sometimes tea. 



INTRODUCTION. 37 



GESTURE. 



It is not intended in the following observations to lay down any 
system of rules by which the youthful speaker is to be governed. Such 
attempts to regulate the expression of the face or the motions of the 
body are deemed worse than useless ; and, if attempted to be carried 
out by the student, will produce a constrained and awkward manner. 
At the same time there are some general directions of easy adoption, 
that will aid the pupil in acquiring an easy, graceful, and effective 
delivery. 

Under the term Gesture is embraced all that part, or delivery, or 
oratory which addresses itself to the eye. It includes, therefore, the 
expression of the countenance and the attitude, as well as those mo- 
tions of the limbs which give peculiar force to the sentiment uttered. 
Muscular action accompanying the expression of thought is perfectly 
natural. It is, next to tones, the very earliest language learned by the 
child. The orator who should attempt to deliver an address without 
the expression of countenance and action appropriate to the sentiment, 
would fail to produce any considerable effect upon his audience, how- 
ever elevated his thoughts or beautiful and chaste his language. 

The power of gesture consists wholly in its appropriateness to the 
emotion excited in the mind of the speaker. The body is the instru- 
ment of the soul ; the medium of expressing internal emotions. The 
soul speaks most intelligibly, so far as visible signs are concerned, 
through those muscles which are most ready to obey its dictates. 
Almost every emotion produces an involuntary effect, especially upon 
the muscles of the face, and has its own peculiar expression. There is 
a genuine sympathy between the real feelings of the heart and the ex- 
pression of the countenance. Lavater says : " When any passion is 
called into action, such passion is depicted by the motion of the mus- 
cles, and these motions are accompanied by a strong palpitation of the 
heart. If the countenance be tranquil, it always denotes tranquillity in 
the region of the heart and breast. " Every one. knows the difference 
between the cheerful aspect of innocence, the vivacity of intelligence, 
the charming languor of pity or grief, the scowl of misanthropy, the 
dark suspicion of guilt, the vacant stare of stupidity, or the hagorard 
frenzy of despair as expressed in the countenance. Benevolence or 
malignity, cheerfulness or melancholy, deep thought or frivolity, all put 
their imprint upon the human face, and can be counterfeited only with 
difficulty. So unequivocal is this language of the passions as depicted 
upon the countenance, that the child soon learns to look into the face 
of the parent or nurse to determine the real meaning of the words 
they may have used. 

It may be remarked, that he whose soul is so destitute of emotion 
as not to impart this expression to his countenance, or he whose ac- 
quired habits are so unfortunate as to frustrate this expression, what- 
ever qualities he may possess, lacks one grand requisite, to true elo- 
quence. The emotional expression on the countenance constitutes the 
medium by which the feelings of the speaker are transmitted to his 
audience, and he acquires a controlling influence over those he ad- 
dresses. 

Hence, the orator who would move others, must be moved himself: 
that is, he must express his emotions by his countenance and by his 



38 INTRODUCTION. 

manner. It is of the first importance that the expression of the counte- 
nance should correspond with the utterance of the lips. The vacant 
stare, the unmeaning frown, the roving cast of the eye, working of the 
eye-brows, closing the eyes, are in direct contrast with that open, col- 
lected, manly expression of the face which gives point and power 
to delivery. I shall make but one suggestion on this subject. 

Avoid all distortions of countenance, and meaningless looks with the 
eye " bent on vacuity ;" and let the emotions of the soul beam forth 
upon the face. 

The position of the body and the motions of the hands and arms, as 
well as the expression of the countenance, have much to do with 
effective oratory. These motions, although impelled by the emotion 
of the soul, are nevertheless under the control of the will, and there- 
fore become the proper subjects of training and discipline. Much of 
the inelegance of position and awkward movements of the arms results 
from the natural embarrassment of the inexperienced speaker. The 
novelty of his situation destroys his self-possession ; his position be- 
comes constrained and awkward ; his arms and hands hang clumsily 
or stiffly, and he seems utterly at a loss what use to make of them. 
This embarrassment may be overcome gradually by practice, combined 
with a fixed determination on the part of the pupil to surmount the 
obstacles in the way of ultimate success. History furnishes many 
illustrations of the above remark. The great masters of oratory at- 
tained eminence, and triumphed over even natural defects of person, 
manner, and utterance by long and persevering self-discipline. Demos- 
thenes furnishes an illustrious example of what may be accomplished 
when there is a fixed resolve to succeed. What has been done may 
be done again. None need give up in despair, however unsatisfactory 
or mortifying their first efforts have been. The following suggestions 
will be found useful to the inexperienced : 

1. In order to speak well, the orator must be able to stand well. He 
should hold himself erect and firm, with the chest expanded so as to 
give full action to the respiratory muscles and unconstrained move- 
ment to the vocal organs. 

2. Let the attitude be the most easy and natural, so that it can be 
changed as the thoughts and emotions expressed may demand. Avoid 
all shuffling and jerking of the limbs in making changes in the posi- 
tion. As a general rule, it will be found that such changes in position 
will be most readily and gracefully effected when the weight of the 
body is made to rest mainly upon one foot, leaving the other free to be 
advanced or thrown backward, as the convenience of the speaker or 
the sentiment uttered may demand. 

3. The principal feature in oratorical action is the appropriate use of 
the hands and arms. Let no movement of the hand be made that is 
not in accordance with the sentiment uttered ; for it is this harmony 
1 hat constitutes propriety. For example : 

The Lands are stretched forward and clasped, when we entreat, 

ch, supplicate, or implore mercy. 
The right hand spread open expresses liberality, bounty. 

To shake the clinched list indicates anger, defiance, threat. 
The right fist struck upon the left hand is used to mock, chide, re- 
buke, reproach. 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

The hand moved from us, with the palm outward, is the gesture of 
repulsion, aversion, and dismissal. 

The hands clasped or wrung indicate deep grief. 

The extended, open hand is expressive of welcome, approbation. 

In shame, the hand is placed before the eyes ; in joy, they are thrown 
up, widely apart ; in exultation and triumph, the right hand is waved 
above the head. 

The hand placed upon the mouth denotes silence ; on the head, pain ; 
on the breast, affection, or an appeal to conscience. 

When the thoughts flow calmly and sweetly, there should be the 
same easy flow of gesture and action. 

Where the style is sharp and abrupt, there is propriety in quick, 
short, and abrupt gesticulation. 

There are errors in the use of the hands and arms which should be 
carefully avoided : 

1. All constrained movements of the arms proceeding only from the 
elbow, with the opposite fault of throwing the arm out straight and 
rigid, are always awkward. The action of the arm should be free, and 
proceed from the shoulder, though care must be taken that the elbow 
be neither straight nor rigid and stiff. 

2. All movements which cause the hand to describe straight lines or 
angles should be avoided. The pupil should study variety and the 
grace of curved lines. The curve is emphatically the " line of beauty" 
when applied to the movements of the hand by the orator. A mere 
swing of the arm, however, though in a curved line, does not always 
constitute a graceful gesture. 

3. It is a common fault to use only one arm, and to give that a uni- 
form motion. Both arms should be permitted to hang freely at the 
side, and both be used as the sentiment and good taste of the speaker 
may dictate. 

4. The inward sweep of the arm is rarely appropriate or graceful. 
The only use of this gesture is to call attention to objects on the other 
side of the speaker from that of the arm employed, or in the expression 
of antithetic ideas. 

5. The head has but' slight 'motion, and that merely in sympathy 
with the arms. All bobbing and shaking of the head, all sudden turn- 
ing and jerking, are faults in manner to be shunned. 

With these brief suggestions, we leave the subj ect to the good taste 
and judicious instructions of the intelligent teacher. 

DECLAMATION. 

A few remarks on the subject of declamation in schools may not be 
deemed out of place here. It is an important and valuable exercise, 
and should have an appropriate place in the education especially of 
American boys. When conducted by a judicious teacher who has 
qualified himself to give instruction in this department, it constitutes 
an important part of that training which fits the student for the dis- 
charge of those duties which society has a right to claim of educated 
men. It is unfortunately too often the practice, in even our best schools, 
either to ignore declamation altogether, or give it such a subordinate 
position in the school exercises that little importance is attached to it 
either by teacher or pupil. This ought not so to be. The elocu- 



40 INTRODUCTION. 

tionary training of the voice, and the discipline necessary to enable the 
student to express his own thoughts, or the thoughts of others, with 
power, ease, and elegance, are accomplishments which should not be 
lightly esteemed. 

In the management of declamation, the first suggestion we have to 
make is with reference to the selection of pieces. After the student 
has had some experience, it may be well to let him follow his own 
taste and judgment ; but the teacher should exercise a judicious scru- 
tiny over the selections of beginners. As a general thing, the most in- 
experienced will be found to select those pieces least suited to their 
powers and most difficult to declaim aright. 

IJaving made a judicious selection, the next object should be to com- 
mit it to memory perfectly. It should require no effort of the mind to 
recall every idea and word in their proper order. The words should 
flow as freely as if the speaker were reading a familiar extract. When- 
ever the mind is occupied merely with the effort to remember the 
word, the manner will be disregarded, and the externals of appropriate 
address neglected. The pupil must thoroughly know, before he can 
itnderstand the meaning or feel the spirit of the piece. Both of these 
must be fully understood and appreciated before he can declaim it 
with propriety and grace. 

Unless the student can enjoy the privilege of frequent private re- 
hearsals — which is very desirable — it will be found beneficial to allow 
him to rehearse the same piece several times, that he may apply the 
instructions of the teacher to that particular piece before passing to 
another. It is by constant repetition of the same instruction that he 
will learn to correct errors in elocution or gesture.. The correction of 
errors is necessarily a gradual work, and the judicious and skilful 
teacher will not undertake to correct too many faults at once. Natural 
diffidence is generally the cause of much of the awkwardness of man- 
ner in beginners, and his errors should be dealt with gently until he 
has become somewhat familiar with his novel position. 

The perfection of declamation consists in repeating a piece as if its 
thoughts and words were those of the pupil himself. The speaker 
must put himself in imagination in the place of him whom he per- 
sonates ; the thoughts and emotions of the author must, for the time 
being, control his soul, and be expressed as if he had the same purpose 
to accomplish as he who first gave them utterance. This power to 
personate the real author must be acquired before perfection in de- 
clamation can be attained. To develop this highest quality of delivery 
requires skill, patience, and perseverance on the part both of teacher 
and pupil. 

While it is true that all the pupils in any school may not be capable 
of attaining perfection in the art of oratory, yet most may reach, at 
least, a respectable position, and all will be greatly benefited by the 
course of training indicated in the preceding observations. 



PART I. 



I. 

THE POWER OF ELOQUENCE.— James Dobbin. 

Eloquence is an art by which man can successfully play 
upon the passions of his fellow-man : at one moment startle 
with his brilliant flashes, and annihilate with his withering 
sarcasm; at another, melt the heart with his touching 
pathos, and win the admiration by those persuasive tones 
and thrilling appeals that lend effectiveness to the most 
cogent reasoning and proclaim the triumph of true elo- 
quence. How oft indeed, when the fires of liberty have 
been well-nigh extinguished, and her votaries sunk in the 
depths of sadness and despair, hath eloquence stepped forth 
to reanimate the drooping and to rekindle the smothered 
fires into a brighter blaze ! How often has eloquence 
checked the desolations of war, protected the blessings of 
peace, encouraged the arts, and touched the chords of a 
thousand hearts in the holy cause of religion and piety ! 

Your earliest readings tell of its power. It was Grecian 
eloquence that gave her orators the sway over the multi- 
tude, and roused all Greece by its thunders to rally and re- 
sist the encroachments of her Macedonian enemy, and gave 
the great master of eloquence a renown that two thousand 
years have only increased.. It is Roman eloquence that will 
ever juerpetuate the glory of the Eternal City. It is British 
eloquence that has thrown a halo around the Sea-girt Isle, 
and that will last when the future traveller will wander 
amid the ruins of her fallen grandeur. Burke and Chatham, 
Pitt and Fox, and Sheridan, and Grattan, and Erskine are 



42 sterling's southern orator. 

names whose immortality attests the power of eloquence, 
illustrated by their brilliant efforts in struggles for their 
country's glory, or in the attainment of laurels in the race 
of personal ambition. What did not American eloquence 
achieve, when Henry, and Adams, and Ames spoke ? What 
hath it not since achieved in many a memorable era in our 
young Republic's history ? 



II. 

POWER OF THE ORATOR.— Anonymous. 

He wmo would touch the heart, and wield at will the 
fierce democracy, must have 

" Wit, and words, and worth, 
Action and utterance, and the power of speech 
To stir men's blood." 

Thus " doubly armed," the orator rises calm in the confi- 
dence of his strength. In vain the angry shout, in vain the 
discordant tumult of a hostile and prejudiced assembly. 
He stands unmoved amid the storm. He speaks, and " his 
big, manly voice" goes forth, like the trumpet's sound, 
above all the tumult. He is by turns patient or indignant, 
bold or yielding, as it suits his purpose. He exhorts ; he 
threatens ; he supplicates ; he persuades. The storm is 
hushed — the waves subside ; he has stretched his wand 
over the troubled waters, and the tempest is at rest. And 
now all hang breathless on his lips ; he warms, he glows, 
he is on fire ; his hearers are carried away with him ; they 
follow him in all his windings, through every change of 
feeling and passion. He bears down every obstacle. His 
friends he animates with his enthusiasm; he lashes his op- 
ponents Avith his satire; he withers them with his scorn; 
he crushes, he annihilates them witli his terrible, his resist- 
less powers. And now acclamations of delight rend the 
air; he is crowned with garlands; he is borne in triumph 
to his home, the hero of the day; achieving a bloodless vic- 
tory, a stainless triumph, nobler than was ever Avon by con- 



sterling's southern orator. 43 

quest and the sword, — the victory of mind over mind, — 
the triumph of the intellect of one man over the under- 
standings and the hearts of thousands. 



III. 
A FREE PRESS.— Cueean. 



Is it asked of what benefit is a Free Press ? — What ca- 
lamities are the people saved from by having public discus- 
sion unrestrained ? I will tell you, gentlemen, what they 
are saved from, and what the government is saved from. 
I will tell you, also, what both are exposed to by suppress- 
ing that discussion. 

In the one case, sedition speaks aloud and walks abroad. 
The demagogue goes forth. The public eye is upon him. 
He frets his busy hum upon the stage, but soon either weari- 
ness, or bribe, or punishment bears him down or drives 
him off, and he appears no more. 

In the other case, how does the work of sedition go for- 
ward ? Night after night the muffled rebel steals forth in 
the dark, and casts another and another brand upon the 
pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, 
he will apply the torch. Even the person of the tyrant is 
never in safety. Neither the fears of the despot nor the 
machinations of the slave have any slumber — the one antici- 
pating the moment of peril, the other watching the oppor- 
tunity of aggression. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise 
upon both; the decisive moment is precipitated without 
warning, by folly on the one side or by frenzy on the 
other ; and there is no notice of the treason till the traitor 
acts. 

In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of the Inst 
gasp of tyranny and the first breath of freedom, how preg- 
nant is the example ! The press extinguished, the people 
enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of so- 
ciety, therefore — of peace — of domestic liberty, — I conjure 
you to guard the freedom of the press. Guard it, because 
when it sinks, there sink with it, in one common grave, the 
liberty of the subject and the security of the crown. 



44 sterling's southern orator. 

rv\ 

FAMINE IN IRELAND.— S. S. PeentisS. 

There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a beau- 
tiful island, famous in story and in song. It has given to 
the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. 
It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its 
brave and generous sons have fought successfully in all 
battles but its own. In wit and humor it has no equal ; 
while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet 
but melancholy pathos. In this fair region God has seen fit 
to send the most terrible of all those fearful ministers who 
fulfil His inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give 
her increase; the common mother has forgotten her off- 
spring, and her breast no longer affords them their accus- 
tomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, 
has seized a nation with its strangling grasp ; and unhappy 
Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a mo- 
ment, the gloomy history of the past. 

In battle, in the fulness of his pride and strength, little 
recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sing his sudden 
requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. 
But he who dies of hunger wrestles alone, day after day, 
with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends 
to cheer him in the terrible conflict ; for, if he had friends, 
how could he die of hunger ? He has not the hot blood of 
the soldier to maintain him ; for his foe, vampire-like, has 
exhausted his veins. 

Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such awful 
results ? Give, then, generously and freely. . Recollect 
that in so doing you are exercising one of the most godlike 
qualities of your nature, and at the same time enjoying one 
of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought to thank our 
Maker that He has permitted us to exercise equally with 
Himself that noblest of even the divine attributes — benev- 
olence. Go home and look at your family, smiling in 
rosy heal tli, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched 
cheeks of the poor children of Ireland, and you will give ac- 
cording to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has 
given to you — not grudgingly, but with an open hand; for 
the quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, 



sterling's southern orator. 45 

" Is not strained ; 
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed : 
It blesses him that gives, and him that takes." 



V. 

PATRIOTISM.— H. L. Pinckney. 

The American Constitution is, in fact, the political lumi- 
nary of the world ; and he who would extinguish its sacred 
light is not only a traitor to American liberty, but justly 
deserves to be regarded as an enemy to the human race. 
Patriotism, therefore, requires you to cultivate an ardent 
and abiding attachment to that Constitution as the bond of 
our political union. 

This is the ark of our political salvation, the citadel from 
which the light of liberty shines and its inspiring banner 
waves ; that sacred light, at which mourning humanity may 
relume its hopes ; that banner which proudly proclaims that 
there is still one republic in the world, one land where man 
walks erect in all the dignity of his nature, and where the 
oppressed of other nations may happily exchange the mis- 
eries of despotism for the inestimable fruition of the rights 
of man. 

And who would overthrow it if he could ? Who is he 
that would rise on the ruins of his country, or that desires 
to see the American capitol rocking on its base, and the 
proud emblem of freedom torn from its walls, and this 
glorious confederacy broken into fragments, and the sun 
of liberty extinguished in fraternal blood, and the whole 
world enveloped in the deep and interminable darkness of 
political death ? 

If there be an American so utterly unworthy of the 
name, let me tell him, for his consolation, that his parrici- 
dal aspiration never can be gratified. The American con- 
federacy can never be dissolved; never, whilst the people 
retain a recollection of their common sufferings and glories, 
or are actuated by the principles of the revolution, or whilst 
reason is left free to combat error, and popular education is 
promoted, and that great engine, the press, remains un- 



46 sterling's southern orator. 

♦ 

trammelled, and men dare to think, and speak, and act like 
freemen. 

" I love thee ; next to heaven above, 
Land of my fathers — thee I love ; 
And rail thy slanderers as they will, 
With all thy faults, I love thee still/' 



VI. 

APPREHENSIONS OF DISUNION.— Wjxliam Pinkney. 

Sir, the people of the United States, if I do not wholly 
mistake their character, are wise as well as virtuous. They 
know the value of that federal association which is to them 
the single pledge and guarantee of power and peace. Their 
warm and pious affections will cling to it, as to their only 
hope of prosperity and happiness, in defiance of pernicious 
abstractions, by whomsoever inculcated, or howsoever seduc- 
tive and alluring in their aspect. Sir, it is not an occasion 
like this, — although connected, as, contrary to all reasonable 
expectation, it has been, with fearful and disorganizing 
theories, which would make our estimates, whether fanciful 
or sound, of natural law the measure of civil rights and 
political sovereignty in the social state, — it is not, I say, 
an occasion like this that can harm the Union. It must, in- 
deed, -be a mighty storm that can push from its moor- 
ings this sacred ark of the common safety. It is not every 
trifling breeze, however it may be made to sob and howl 
in imitation of the tempest, by the auxiliary breath of the 
ambitious, the timid, or the discontented, that can drive 
this gallant vessel, freighted with every thing that is dear 
to an American bosom, upon the rocks, or lay it a sheer 
hulk upon the ocean. 

I may, perhaps, mistake the flattering suggestions of hope 
(the greatest of all flatterers, as we are told) for the con- 
clusions of sober reason. Yet it is a j^leasing error, if it be 
an error, and no man shall take it from me. I will continue 
to cherish the belief, — ay, sir, in defiance of the public 
patronage given to deadly speculations, which, invoking the 
name of Deity to aid their faculties for mischief, strike at all 
establishments, — I will continue to cherish the belief that 



sterling's southern orator. 47 

the Union of these States is formed to bear up against far 
greater shocks than, through all vicissitudes, it is ever likely 
to encounter. I will continue to cherish the belief that, 
although, like all other human institutions, it may for a 
season be disturbed, or suffer momentary eclipse by the 
transit across its disk of some malignant planet, it possesses 
a recuperative force, a redeeming energy, in the hearts of 
the people, that will soon restore it to its wonted calm, and 
give it back its accustomed splendor. On such a subject I 
will discard all hysterical apprehensions ; I will deal in no 
sinister auguries ; I will indulge in no hypochondriacal 
forebodings. I will look forward to the future with gay 
and cheerful hope, and will make the prospect smile, in 
fancy at least, until overwhelming reality shall render it no 
longer possible. 



VII. 
DANIEL WEBSTER.— H. W. Helliard, 

In a snow-storm, a sleigh was seen ascending a hill in the 
State of New-Hampshire, in which were seated a man already 
mature, of fine, bold face, and a youth of generous counte- 
nance. The elder traveller addresses some words to the 
younger, which seem to move him ; for he presently rests his 
head upon the shoulder of his companion, and his eyes are 
filled with tears. 

The travellers were Ebenezer Webster and his son Daniel, 
and the father had just announced to his son his purpose to 
send him to college. Daniel, overcome with emotion at 
the opening of such a career, and at the thought of the sac- 
rifice which his father is about to make for him, cannot re- 
strain his tears. There the ardor of a great soul broke forth, 
and the eye of the young eagle flashed as it turned for the 
first time toward the sun. . . . 

A really great man is the grandest object which this 
world ever exhibits. The heavens in their magnificence — 
the ocean in its sublime immensity — mountains standing firm 
upon their granite foundations — all are less imposing than 
a living man in the possession of his highest faculties. 

Demosthenes urging the Athenians to march against Philip 



48 sterling's southern orator. 

interests us more than all Greece. Hannibal scaling the 
Alps with his victorious legions is a sublimer object than the 
Alps themselves. Marius seated upon the ruins of Carthage 
makes us forget the fall of an empire in contemplating the 
fortunes of a man. Nelson, upon the deck of the Victory, 
with the star glittering upon his breast, is a grander sight 
than the two hostile fleets. Napoleon at Waterloo, riding 
to the brow of the hill at the head of the Imperial Guard 
when they were to make their last charge upon the British 
lines, is an object of higher interest than all the stern array 
of battle besides. Lord Chatham sinking in the House 
of Lords is the noblest object in the British empire ; and 
Washington crossing the Delaware at night, amid the crash- 
ing ice, fixes our attention in the midst of the dread magnifi- 
cence of the winter scene, and we look upon him as we 
would upon an avenging archangel going forth to smite the 
invading army. 

Our country has produced some great men. They glow 
in the heaven of the past like stars in the firmament, and 
in that splendid constellation we see Webster in full-orbed 
glory. In history, as in the heavens, one star differeth from 
another star in glory. 



VIII. 

THE BRITISH EMPIRE.— Macaulay. 

This is, indeed, a great, and splendid, and mighty empire, 
well provided with means of annoyance and weapons of de- 
fence. She can do many things which are far beyond the 
power of any other nation in the world ; she dictated peace 
to China, she governs Australasia, and she rules Caffraria. 
Should occasion again arise, she could sweep from the sur- 
face of the ocean the commerce of the world, and, as for- 
merly, blockade the ports, and spread her triumphant flag 
from the Baltic to the Adriatic. She is able to maintain 
her Indian empire against every threatened hostility, whether 
by land or sea; but, amid all this vast mass of power, there 
is one vulnerable point — one spot unguarded, and that spot 
nearest to her heart ; a spot at which, forty-five years ago, 



sterling's southern orator. 49 

a deadly, happily not a fatal, blow was aimed. The gov- 
ernment and Parliament, each in its sphere, is deeply respon- 
sible for the continuance of such a lamentable state of 
things, and, for my part of that responsibility, I intend to 
clear myself by the vote I shall give in favor of the motioit 
of my noble friend; and I trust that I shall find with me 
so large and respectable a body of members of this house, 
as shall satisfy the Irish people that they still have friends 
in England, and that they need not yet relinquish all hope 
of protection from the wisdom and justice of an imperial 
parliament. 



IX. 

THE DRUNKARD'S SOLILOQUY.— Field's Scrap-Book. 

Who am I ? Ay, and what am I, but a wretched outcast, 
shunned and despised by the wise and good? My estate 
wasted ; constitution destroyed ; affairs in ruin ; friends 
absconded; children naked and hungry; wife in tears and 
comfortless ; appetite none ; visage bloated and disgusting ; 
hands and knees tremulous; reason debased, and manners 
become vile ; character annihilated ! My acquaintances 
pass by me like strangers ! I am tormented by disease ; 
harassed by lawsuits ; teased by creditors ; collared by 
sheriffs ; mocked and hunted by truants and black- 
guards ! I am a hated, filthy sot, companion only to the 
lowest brute ! Nay, the vile brute is exalted, is noble, com- 
pared to a wretch like me ! In all that is esteemed honor- 
able, respectable, and worthy in society, I am the mere cin- 
der of a crucible; the very paltry dregs of alembics! 
Cursed intemperance, these are thy fruits ! Oppressed na- 
ture can hold on no longer! She is about to resign her 
worthless charge ! The horrid grave opens upon me and 
yawns for its prey ! Despair seizes me ! My brain is on fire ! 
Away, then ; let me hasten, and sink, unremembercd, down, 
down, down to — ! "Father, father!" exclaimed a sudden 
and wild voice. The knife fell to the ground, and a ragged 
though lovely boy rushed into his embraces. 
3 



50 STEELINGTS SOUTHERN OEATOR. 

RELIGION.— Mackenzie. 

He who would undermine those foundations upon which 
the fabric of our future hope is reared, seeks to beat down 
that column which supports the feebleness of humanity : 
let him but think a moment, and his heart will arrest the 
cruelty of his purpose. Would he pluck its little treasure 
from the bosom of poverty ? Would he wrest its crutch 
from the hand of age, and remove from the eye of afflic- 
tion the only solace of its woe ? The way we tread is rugged 
at best ; we tread it, however, lighter by the prospect of 
the better country to which, we trust, it will lead. Tell us 
not that it will end in the gulf of eternal dissolution, or 
break off in some wild, which fancy may fill up as she 
pleases, but reason is unable to delineate ; quench not that 
beam which, amidst the night of this evil world, has cheered 
the despondency of ill-requited worth, and illumined the 
darkness of suffering virtue. 



XI. 

THE UNION.— James McDowell. 

It is said, sir, that, at some dark hour of our revolution- 
ary contest, when army after army had been lost ; when, 
dispirited, beaten, wretched, the heart of the boldest and 
faithfulest died within them, and all, for an instant, seemed 
conquered, except the unconquerable soul of our father- 
chief — it is said, that at that moment, rising above all the 
auguries around him, and buoyed up by the inspiration of 
his immortal work for all the trials it could bring, he roused 
anew the sunken spirits of his associates by this confident 
and daring declaration : " Strip me," said he " of the deject- 
ed and suffering remnant of my army — take from me all 
that I have left — leave but a banner, give me but the means 
to plant it upon the mountains of West-Augusta, and I will 
yet draw around me the men who will lift up their bleed- 
ing country from the dust, and set her free." Give to me, 



sterling's southern orator. 51 

who am a son and representative here of that West- Augus- 
ta — give to me, as a banner, the propitious measure I have 
endeavored to support, help me to plant it upon this moun- 
tain-top of our national power, and the land of Washing- 
ton, undivided and unbroken, will be our land, and the 
land of our children's children forever. So help me to 
do this at this hour, and, generations hence, some future 
representative of the South, standing where I stand, in this 
same honored hall, and in the midst of our legitimate suc- 
cessors, will bless, and praise, and thank God that he too 
can say of them, as I of you, and of all around me, These, 
these are my brethren, and this, this, oh, this, too, is my 
country ! 



XII. 
EARL OF CHATHAM.— William Wirt. 

When the great Earl of Chatham first made his appear- 
ance in the House of Commons, and began to astonish and 
transport the British Parliament and the British nation by 
the boldness, the force, and range of his thoughts, and* the 
celestial fire and pathos of his eloquence, it is well known 
that the minister, Walpole, and his brother Horace, from 
motives very easily understood, exerted all their w T it, all 
their oratory, all their acquirements of every description, 
sustained and enforced by the unfeeling " insolence of office," 
to heave a mountain on his gigantic genius, and hide it from 
the world. Poor and powerless attempt ! The tables were 
turned. He rose upon them, in tbe might and irresistible 
energy of his genius, and in spite of all their convulsions, 
frantic agonies, and spasms, he strangled them and their 
whole faction with as much ease as Hercules did the ser- 
pent Python. 

Who can turn over the debates of the day, and read the 
account of this conflict between youthful ardor and hoary- 
headed cunning and power, without kindling in the cause 
of the tyro, and shouting at his victory? That they should 
have attempted to pass off the grand yet solid and judi- 
cious operations of a mind like his as being mere theatrical 
start and emotion, the giddy, hare-brained eccentricities of 
a romantic "boy — that they should have had the presump- 



52 sterling's southern orator. 

tion to suppose themselves capable of chaining down to the 
floor of the Parliament a genius so ethereal, towering, and 
sublime — seems unaccountable. Why did they not, in the 
next breath, by way of crowning the climax of vanity, bid 
the magnificent fire-ball to descend from its exalted and 
appropriate region, and perform its splendid tour along the 
surface of the earth ? 



XIII. 

INTERVENTION IN EUROPEAN WARS.— Jeremiah Clemens. 

Misfortunes may come upon us all ; dishonor attaches 
only to the unworthy. A nation may be conquered, trodden 
down — her living sons in chains, her dead the prey of vul- 
tures — and still leave a bright example, a glorious history, 
to after times. But when folly and wickedness have ruled 
the hour — when disaster is the legitimate child of error and 
weakness — the page that records it is but a record of infamy, 
and pity for misfortune becomes a crime against justice. 
Sir,*I do not love that word " destiny " — "manifest" or not 
" manifest." Men and nations make their own destinies. 

" Our acts our angels are, or good or ill — 
Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still." 

The future of this Republic is in our hands ; and it is for us to 
determine whether we will launch the ship of state upon a 
wild and stormy sea, above whose blackened waters no sun- 
shine beams, no star shines out, and where not a ray is seen 
but what is caught from the lurid lightning in its fiery path. 
This, senators, is the mighty question w^e have to solve ; and 
let me add, if the freedom of one continent, and the hopes 
of four, shall sink beneath that inky flood, ours will be the 
guilt — ours the deep damnation. 

Shall I be told these arc idle fears ? That, in a war with 
Russia, no matter for what cause waged, we must be the 
victors? That, in short, all Europe combined could not 
blot this Union from the map of nations ? Ah, sir, that is 
not all I fear. I fear success even more than defeat. The 
senator from Michigan was right when he said that ourfeara 
were to be found at home. I do fear ourselves. Commit 



sterling's southern orator. 53 

our people once to unnecessary foreign wars — let victory- 
encourage the military spirit, already too prevalent among 
them — and Roman history will have no chapter bloody 
enough to be transmitted to posterity side by side with ours. 
In a brief period we shall have reenacted, on a grander scale, 
the same scenes which marked her decline. The veteran 
soldier, who has followed a victorious leader from clime to 
clime, will forget his love of country in his love for his com- 
mander ; and the bayonets you send abroad to conquer a 
kingdom will be brought back to destroy the rights of the 
citizen, and prop the throne of an emperor. 



XIV. 
MISSOURI COMPROMISE.— Robert Toombs. 

Me. President, there is another test of the nationality 
of this policy, to which I would, for a few moments, invite 
your attention. Not alone in the South, whose interests are 
mainly and more immediately affected by it, but through- 
out the non-slaveholding States, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, its supporters are to be found, men who, rising 
superior to local and sectional prejudices and passions and 
influences, brave, dare all for the public weal. 

At the head of this noble column of patriots stands the 
President of the republic. Having reached, by the voice 
of his countrymen, the loftiest pinnacle of honorable ambi- 
tion, at once the reward and testimonial of a long, able, bril- 
liant, and patriotic career in the service of his country, 
surely none can doubt the disinterestedness of his counsels 
or the purity of his motives. His sands of life have nearly 
run out. At home and abroad, in the Cabinet and in the 
Senate, he has won unfading laurels for himself and shed 
lustre over the annals of his country. His political record 
is made up ; it is submitted to the future, to time,, and to 
truth; full of years and of honors, he can now only seek to 
make a record that shall stand the scrutiny of the Judge of 
all the earth. Looking at this question at his lofty em- 
inence, above the clouds and passions which obscure the 
mental vision of the active combatants, he supports this 



54 sterling's southern orator. 

great policy which I have reviewed, and decides this meas- 
ure to be wise, just, and necessary to the peace of the 
republic. By his side stands another venerable patriot 
from the same section of the Union, who has passed the 
ordinary period of life allotted to man ; one whose life has 
been patriotically devoted to the service of the country, to 
the practice of virtue, # and the pursuit of truth. He, too, 
gave his voice and his vote against the Missouri restriction, 
and gives his support to the measure before us. Connec- 
ticut and Pennsylvania supply two other able, upright, and 
distinguished sons in the cabinet to enlarge this patriot 
band and to vindicate these measures. 






xv. 
TEXAS AND ALABAMA.— Samuel Houston. 

I have this further assurance, that I made the State, but 
I did not make the people ; and if they do wrong, the State 
still remains in all its beauty, with its splendid and inviting 
prospects, with nothing on the earth to surpass it in climate, 
soil, and productions, all varied and delightful. It remains 
the same beautiful Texas. I made it. I did not make the 
people. They came there and they are there ; but the State 
remains, and I am a citizen of it. 

The gentleman says he loves Alabama because he was 
born there. Sir, I, too, love Alabama ; I have endearments 
of the most delicate character connected with Alabama. 
More, sir, when it was an unbroken wilderness, forty-four 
years ago; when the savage and the wild beast roamed 
over it, and every man who went there had to go with his 
life in one hand and his weapons of war in the other ; it 
was there that I kindled camp-fires and sat by them and 
kept vigils. I assisted in redeeming that land from a 
wilderness and a desert, and I watered it with the richest 
blood of youth that flowed in these veins. Ought I not 
to love the South ? Yes, sir ; I cherished every manly sen- 
timent for the South ; and I am determined that, while I 
live in it, none of the fraternal bonds which bind it to this 
Union shall be broken. 



STERLING'S southern orator. 55 

XVI. 
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.— R. M. T. Hunter. 

In the Eastern world, spoils of empire that have been ac- 
cumulating since the earliest records of time begin now to 
attract the regards and the cupidity of the great powers 
of Europe. Their fleets are already coasting along that 
slender barrier which separates them from the mighty prize, 
but which they are deterred from grasping more from the 
fear of each other than from the dread of any opposition 
which they are to encounter there. 

The eagles have indeed gathered to the banquet. But one 
alone is absent from the feast, and she is the youngest 
mother of them all. She is at home guarding her nest, be- 
cause she is afraid that if she leaves them her young will 
not dwell together in peace. Sir, such a state of things 
cannot long endure. The instincts of power and of em- 
pire must of themselves prevent it. If the senator will 
allow me to use his tripod for a moment, and to venture a 
prediction for the future, I would say that the American 
people will preserve their Constitution, and the Union 
which is founded upon it ; they will maintain their courts ; 
they will continue to cherish respect for the judicial ermine 
and for the majesty of the law; and they will cultivate 
hereafter, as I trust, a spirit of peace and of friendship at 
home. For one, I hope for the day when, in the beautiful 
language of Mr. Jefferson, " we may unite with one heart 
and with one mind to restore to social intercourse that 
harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life 
itself, are but dreary things." Yes, sir, I will venture still 
to hope — ■ 

" For I have seen 
The thorn frown rudely all the winter long, 
And after "bear the rose upon its top." 



56 sterling's southern orator. 

XVII. 
POPULARIZING GOVERNMENT.— Andrew Johnson. 

The policy of my friend would be to take the govern- 
ment further from the people. I go in a direction to popu- 
larize it, and bring it nearer to the people. There is no 
better illustration of this than that old maxim, which is 
adopted in all our ordinary transactions, that " if you want 
a thing done, send somebody to do it ; if you want it well 
done, go and do it yourself. 5 ' It applies with great force in 
government affairs as in individual affairs ; and as we can 
advance and make the workings and operation of our gov- 
ernment familiar to and understood by the people, the better 
for us. I say, when and wherever it is practicable, let the 
people transact their own business ; bring them more in 
contact with their government, and then you will arrest 
expenditure, you will arrest corruption, you will have a purer 
and better government. 

I hold to the doctrine that man can be advanced ; that 
man can be elevated ; that man can be more exalted in his 
character and condition. We are told, on high authority, 
that he is made in the image of his God ; that he is endow- 
ed with a certain amount of divinity. And I believe man 
can be elevated ; man can become more and more endowed 
with divinity ; and as he does, he becomes more godlike 
in his character and capable of governing himself. Let 
us go on elevating our people, perfecting our institutions, 
until democracy shall reach such a point of perfection 
that we can exclaim with truth that the voice of the people 
is the voice of God. 



XVIII. 

NATIONAL PROGRESS.— Hugh S. Legaiie. 

Sir, I dare not trust myself to speak of my country with 
the rapture which I habitually feel when I contemplate her 
marvellous history. But this I will say, that, on my return 
to it, alter an absence of only four years, I was filled with 
wonder at all I saw and all I heard. What is to be compar- 



57 

ed with it ? I found New-York grown up to almost double 
its former size, with the air of a great capital instead of a 
mere flourishing commercial town, as I had known it. I 
listened to accounts of voyages of a thousand miles, in 
magnificent steamboats, on the water of those great lakes, 
which, but the other day, I left sleeping in the primeval 
silence of nature, in the recesses of a vast wilderness ; and 
I felt that there are a grandeur and a majesty in this irre- 
sistible onward march of a race — created, as I believe, and 
elected, to possess and people a continent — which belong to 
few other objects, either of the moral or material world. 

We may become so much accustomed to such things, 
that they shall make as little impression upon our mind as 
the glories of the heavens above us ; but, looking on them 
lately as with the eye of the stranger, I felt, what a recent 
English traveller is said to have remarked, that, far from 
being without poetry, as some have vainly alleged, our 
whole country is one great poem. Sir, it is so ; and if there 
be a man that can think of what is doing, in all parts of 
this most blessed of all lands, to embellish and advance it 
— who can contemplate that living mass of intelligence, 
activity, and improvement, as it rolls on in its sure and 
steady progress to the uttermost extremities of the west — 
who can see scenes of savage desolation transformed, almost 
with the suddenness of enchantment, into those of fruitful- 
ness and beauty, crowned with flourishing cities filled with 
the noblest of all populations — if there be a man, I say, 
that can witness all this passing under his very eyes, with- 
out feeling his heart beat high and his imagination warmed 
and transported by it, be sure, sir, that the raptures of song 
exist not for him ; he would listen in vain to Tasso or 
Camoens, telling a tale of the wars of knights and crusad- 
ers, or of the discovery and conquest of another hemi- 
sphere. 



XIX. 

STATE PRIDE.— W. W. Avery. 

My young friends, the hopes of our " good old State" 
are now concentrated in her young men ; and I impress it 
upon you, as a duty of paramount obligation, to cultivate 



* 

58 sterling's southern orator. 

the sentiment of State pride. This feeling may be cherish- 
ed with patriotic ardor, without impairing the force of any 
obligation imposed by the Federal Constitution. It will 
loosen no cord and weaken no tie that should bind your 
affections to the Union of the States ; and whilst it abates 
no portion of that general interest which we must feel in 
the happiness of all who live with us in the same republic, 
it will imbue you with unfaltering devotion to your native 
State, her institutions, and her people. Such devotion, and 
such devotion only, will preserve our territory from depopu- 
lation, or save those who may remain upon our soil from 
degrading inferiority in the eyes of our brethren in the 
other States, and in the estimation of the civilized world. 
I have delineated faithfully and truly the actual condition 
of the State ; you have looked upon the picture : I can add 
nothing that will heighten its impression. As Anthony ex- 
posed before his countrymen the corpse of Caesar, reeking 
with blood, and thereby excited their minds to mutiny and 
rage, so I present before you the Body Politic of your na- 
tive State, bleeding from a hundred wounds, and ask that 
their " dumb mouths" may speak for me. If their mute 
eloquence awaken not your sympathies, no human language 
could touch your hearts. 



XX. 

THE NECESSITY FOR CONSULS ABROAD.— John Pee-kins. 

In sixty-five years we have grown from a few compara- 
tively feeble settlements into a great empire. Civilization 
has, within this period, poured its light into our great cen- 
tral valley, and forests have disappeared, cities sprung up, 
and a magnificent landscape everywhere spread itself out, 
beautiful in the results of religion and law. In this it may 
be questioned whether the internal or foreign policy of the 
government lias had the most influence. 

The extension of our territory, the rapid development of 
our wealth, the opening of new and the increase of old 
sources of foreign trade, and the participation in it of the 
capital and products of all sections of the Union have caused 
to sympathize nearly every domestic interest with foreign 



sterling's southern orator. 59 

affairs. It is no exaggeration to say that there is not an 
acre of corn or cotton grown in the West or South, not an 
American vessel in any port in the world insured, not a loan 
made, nor a note discounted at any of our banks, which is 
not affected in its value, or in some way acted upon, and 
made a vibration of the great political and financial move- 
ments of the rest of the world. The fact that these domes- 
tic interests, which thus, like nerves, spread all over the 
globe, connect remote localities with interior points of our 
own country, cannot be protected by our own legislation, 
but depend upon treaties and the regard of the other powers 
of the earth for certain great principles of international law, 
makes the perfecting of the agency, through which we com- 
municate with the rest of the world, a matter of great prac- 
tical importance. 

A distinguished statesman of England, speaking on this 
subject, has called ministers and consuls " the ears, eyes, and 
mouths of a government, by which it hears, sees, and com- 
municates with the rest of the world. 55 The object of this 
bill is to make these organs of communication respond more 
distinctly to the purpose of their creation. It is time that 
something was done to reform existing abuses. Our inter- 
ests at home and abroad demand it. The honor of the coun- 
try requires it. The occasion is a fit one. 



XXI. 

PATIENT INDUSTRY ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS. 

Rev. Dk. Talmadgk 

Let me present a scene which I wish were always fancy, 
but which I am sorry to say is enacted not unfrequently. 
Of two youths about prepared to enter the freshman 
class of a college, one takes his proper place ; the other, at 
the earnest entreaty of an injudicious father, and by the 
pliancy of a yielding faculty, enters the sophomore class. 
The latter, with some rare and happy exceptions, if he is 
able at all to retain his position, is found to graduate in 
three years at the bottom of his class; and yon shall never 
more hear from him unless you go to within a few miles of 



60 



STERLING S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 






r 
c 

tl 
e< 

CI 

w 

in 
us 
un 

th; 

is 



his residence. The former in four years graduates, with 
honor, among the leaders of his class, and is soon fifty years 
ahead of the other in usefulness and fame. Here a year's 
time seemed to be gained at the start; but the gain proved 
in the end to be a dead loss. . . . 

Who are those orators with so facile a manner — so easy 
a flow of words — so copious a torrent of thoughts — and with 
such profound philosophy, clothed in illustrations so rich, 
gathered from nature and from every science and art — en- 
chaining yonder senate chamber and fascinating yonder bar, 
and, from the pulpit, wringing tears of sorrow and of joy 
alternately from the eyes of the enraptured audience ? 
They are Chatham, and Grattan, and Curran, and Calhoun, 
and Clay, and Webster, and Massillon, and Chalmers, and 
Robert Hall. And what writer is that who plays upon the 
English language as upon a harp, and who evokes the sweetest 
music in the utterance of the richest thoughts and the pro- 
foundest philosophy ? That is Edmund Burke, the philoso- 
phic statesman. 

To all these men thought andlanguage seemed playthings, 
to be uttered in mere wantonness and sport. But they 
gained their envied achievements by industry and toil. 
They were all men of severe and patient thought and labor- 
ious study. 



XXII. 
THE DESTINY OF AMERICA.— J. Story. 

We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last 
experiment of self-government by the people. We have 
begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. 
We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been 
checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions 
have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the 
Old World. Such as we are, we have been from the be- 
ginning — simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self- 
government and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between 
us and any formidable foe. 

Within our own territory, stretching through many de- 
grees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many 
pfoducts and many means of independence. The govern- 



sterling's southern orator. 61 

ment is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Know- 
ledge reaches, or may reach, every home. What fairer 
prospects of success could be presented ? What means 
more adequate to accomplish the sublime end ? What 
more is necessary than for the people to preserve what they 
themselves have created ? 

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. 
It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes 
of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of 
Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the 
lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Ger- 
many and the north, and, moving onward to the south, has 
opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. 

Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can 
betray herself ? that she is to be added to the catalogue of 
republics, -the inscription upon whose ruins is, " They were, 
but they are not" ? Forbid it, my countrymen ; forbid it, 
Heaven ! 



/ 

XXIII. 

THE PRICE OF LIBERTY IS PERPETUAL VIGILANCE. 

J. C. Calhoun. 

But of the few nations who have been so fortunate as to 
adopt a wise constitution, still fewer have had the wisdom 
long to preserve it. It is harder to preserve than to ob- 
tain liberty. After years of prosperity, the tenure by which 
it is held is but too often forgotten ; and I fear, senators, 
that such is the case with us. There is no solicitude now 
about liberty. It was not so in the early days of the re- 
public. Then it was the first object of our solicitude. The 
maxim then was, that " Power is always stealing from the 
many to the few ;" " The price of liberty is perpetual vigi- 
lance." Then no question of any magnitude came up, in 
which the first inquiry was not, " Is it constitutional ?" " Is 
it consistent with our free, popular institutions ?" " How is 
it to affect our liberty?" It is not so now. Questions of 
the greatest magnitude are now discussed without reference 
or allusion to these vital considerations. I have been often 
struck with the fact that, in the discussions of the great 



62 sterling's southern orator. 

questions in which we are now engaged, relating to the 
origin and the conduct of this war, their effect on the free 
institutions and the liberty of the people have scarcely been 
alluded to, although their bearing in that respect is so direct 
and disastrous. They would, in former days, have been the 
great and leading topics of discussion ; and would, above all 
others, have had the most powerful effect in arousing the 
attention of the country. But now, other topics occupy the 
attention of Congress and of the country — military glory, 
extension of the empire, and the aggrandizement of the 
country. To what is this great change to be attributed ? 
Is it because there has been a decay of the spirit of liberty 
among the people? I think not. I believe that it was 
never more ardent. The true cause is, that we have ceased 
to remember the tenure by which liberty alone can be pre- 
served. We have had so many years of prosperity — passed 
through so many difficulties and dangers without the loss 
of liberty — that we begin to think that we hold it by right 
divine from Heaven itself. Under this impression, without 
thinking or reflecting, we plunge into war, contract heavy 
debts, increase vastly the patronage of the executive, and 
indulge in every species of extravagance, without thinking 
that we expose our liberty to hazard. It is a great and 
fatal mistake. The day of retribution will come ; and when 
it does, awful will be the reckoning, and heavy the respon- 
sibility somewhere. 



XXIV. 

DEATH OF HON. ANDREW P. BUTLER OF S. C. 
A. H. Stephens. 

Sir, eulogy is not my object ; that may be left for his 
biographer or historian. He that was a few months ago 
with us is gone. Those places that knew him so well will 
know him no more. We, too, are passing away. How 
brief the time since the voices of Lowndes, of McDuffie, of 
Calhoun, and of Hamilton were heard within these walls! 
The cold sod covers them to-day. The voice of Butler is 
silent in the grave with theirs. These were men that stirred, 
in their day, empires — a proud galaxy, of which the gallant 



sterling's southern orator. 63 

Palmetto State, which they almost adored, may well be 
proud. As a mother, she may well boast of such jewels. 

But, the thought, how suggestive, when we see men of 
such character in their day and generation, passing away, 
receding from the existing generation — how suggestive the 
thought — the truth that, 

" When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, 
Though loud the sound, the echo sleeps at last ; 
And glory, like the phoenix 'midst the fires, 
Exhales her odors, blazes and expires." 

" What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue !" 
How transitory pleasures ! How unsubstantial honors ! 
The only hope to the wise and the good — the virtuous 
good — on this earth, with all their aspirations for honorable 
place — and such aspirations are to be great only so far as 
they are good — is the hope, the day-star of promise, that 
hereafter the dust of these bodies, like the ashes of that 
same fabled phoenix, is to be quickened into newness of life 
in a future existence, Avhere to each shall be measured out 
according to the deeds done here in the body ; where there 
shall be no more strife, no more pain, no more death, but 
never-ending immortality. I second the resolutions. 



xxv. 

THE BANE OF OUR GOVERNMENT.— John Bell. 

Here in this country we have no despotic governments, 
general or local. All are moulded in the most perfect forms 
of freedom consistent with the preservation of the great and 
legitimate objects of civil society. Neither by the theory, 
nor by any of the express provisions of our political system 
is any one man clothed with authority, even for a term of 
years, to play the despot, to substitute his will for the will 
of the people in deciding upon the issues of peace and of 
war, or to dictate the policy of the country, domestic or 
foreign; though, in the practical operation of our system, 
we know, by experience, that a weak or a bad man may as- 
sume "and exercise all these powers. Here we have no pent- 
up spirit of liberty, as in Europe, threatening to burst forth 



64 sterling's southern orator, 

and disturb the public peace in an effort to assert the rights 
of the people. Still I assert that there are just grounds for 
the uneasiness and apprehensions which pervade the public 
mind. As the country advances in wealth and power, as 
our territorial dominion expands, it is but too manifest that 
in the practical operation of the government there has been 
a regular progress of departure from its true theory. The 
forms of the government have been observed, while the spirit 
and objects of their institution have been for the most part 
disregarded and defeated. The regular and legitimate influ- 
ences which, by the theory of our system, should preside over 
elections, and control the administration of the government, 
are superseded and inverted. 

Whatever other causes may have contributed to this de- 
plorable result, the chief one undoubtedly has been the ex- 
treme and anomalous party action to which the govern- 
ment has been subjected by the prevalence of party spirit, 
that proverbial bane of all free governments, stimulated to 
excess by the magnitude of the prize of victory in the great 
quadrennial struggles for the presidential purple — the thou- 
sands of lucrative offices, and the millions of public treasure 
belonging, by established usage, to the victors in these great 
contests. 



XXVI. 

THE STANDARD OF CITIZENSHIP.— John Kelly. 

But, sir, may we not hope that a better day is beginning 
to dawn upon our country? We have had enough, and 
more than enough, of this rancorous spirit of partisan war- 
fare. It is time we should forget those feuds that would 
separate brother from brother and friend from friend, and 
meet once again on the common platform of true, constitu- 
tional, American nationality. When our liberties are men- 
aced, and the foeman dares to invade our soil, we stop not 
to ask the birthplace of our ancestors, or the period of our 
own or our fathers' emigration. Are we true and loyal to 
the Constitution of our country, and ready to peril our life 
in its defence? That was the revolutionary standard of 
citizenship; let it, in the name of God and of liberty, be 
ours also. Our adopted citizens have, in no instance, proved 



65 

themselves unworthy this standard, and they are not likely 
to degenerate in future time. The German and the Irishman 
of to-day are no less patriotic and ardent in the cause of 
human freedom than the German and the Irishman of the 
Revolution. TTe may, perhaps, sooner than we imagine, 
need the bravery of all our sons. A wily enemy is lurking 
about our borders. Her emissaries and agents are maraud- 
ing about the waters of our Southern States, and already 
our flag has been insulted and our citizens maltreated by 
these arrogant intermeddlers. We may need the union of 
all true hearts and bold hands. Let us not palsy the na- 
tional strength by unmeaning cHstinctions and illiberal pro- 
scription. Oar truest glory consists in our birthright of 
freedom. Our freedom is but a name without the virtues of 
our sires. 



XXVII. 
THE RESTORATION OF PEACE AND HARMONY.— R. P. Teippe. 

TVheee, then, sir, is the patriot who does not wish to re- 
lieve his country from this pressure, and to enable the people 
to come up to the consideration of other great principles in- 
timately connected with their present interests and future 
prosperity ? Happy would be the lot of that man who could 
remove the Achan's wedge, and bring back once more the 
blessings of heaven upon our politic Israef. 

I may be mistaken, Mr. Chairman, in one great object I 
hope to aid in securing by my vote. I am for peace — an 
honorable and lasting peace — heart and soul ; and short of 
a sacrifice of principle, I dare not sacrifice ; short of a sur- 
render of rights — which would be degradation — I would be 
willing to adopt any honorable course to give and secure 
that peace to a distracted country. I shall take this step, 
and give this vote, hoping, if it succeed, that peace may 
come. As it is, I know full well we have it not. The old 
vessel is cabled fast to the shore, as if to a '.'body of death," 
striking heavily on the rocks that surround her. She cannot 
part that cable, and go out to seek deeper and safer waters. 
There she is, bound by this Gordian knot. As a pilot or 
mariner on board, it is on me to join in deciding what shall 



Q6 sterling's southern orator. 

be done. It maybe a- dangerous attempt, for serious threats 
are made ; but, risking all, I would cut that Gordian knot, 
turn loose the ship, hoist sail, and strike out for more quiet 
waters, where the winds of heaven may fill her sails, and 
send her on her way rejoicing.. 

Let the deed be done ; and give the patriot's prayer — 
God speed her, and send her safe deliverance ! 



XXVIII. 
PRESERVATION OF THH UNION— 1833.— John Tyler. 

If the majority shall pass this bill, they must do it on 
their own responsibility ; I will have no part in it. When 
gentlemen recount the blessings of union ; when they 
dwell upon the past, and sketch out in bright perspective 
the future, they awaken in my breast all the pride of an 
American ; my pulse beats responsive to theirs, and I re- 
gard union, next to freedom, as the greatest of blessings. 
Yes, sir, ' the Federal Union must be preserved.' But 
how ? Will you preserve it by force ? Will you appease 
the angry spirit of discord by an oblation of blood ? 
Suppose that the proud spirit of South - Carolina shall 
not bend to your high edicts in token of fealty ; that 
you make war upon her, hang her governor, her legislators, 
and judges as traitors, and reduce her to the condition of a 
conquered province — have you preserved the Union ? 
This Union consists of twenty-four States ; would you have 
preserved the Union by striking out one of the States — one 
of the old thirteen ? Gentlemen have boasted of the flag 
of our country, with its thirteen stars. When the light of 
one of these stars shall have been extinguished, will the 
flag wave over us, under which our fathers fought? If we 
arc to go on striking out star after star, what will finally 
remain but a central and a burning sun, lighting and de- 
stroying every germ of liberty ? The flag which I wish to 
wave over me is that which floated at Saratoga and York- 
town. It bore upon it thirteen Slates, of which South-Caro- 
lina was one. Sir, there is a great difference between pre- 
serving union and preserving government ; the Union may 
be annihilated, yet government preserved; but, under such 
a government, no man ought to desire to live. 



STERLING'S SOUTHEKjS" ORATOR. 67 

XXIX. 
OLIVES CROMWELL.— Right Rev. Bishop Atkinson. 

With all this force of character, he was not a man of 
blood. Constant efforts were made to assassinate him ; and 
he was importuned by his officers to permit a general mas- 
sacre of the royal party, but he would never consent. In 
short, says Clarendon, somewhat inconsistently, after such 
a recital, "as he had all the wickedness against which 
damnation is denounced and for which hell-fire is prepared, 
so he had some virtues which have caused the memory of 
some men in all ages to be celebrated, and he will be looked 
on by posterity as a brave, bad man." This, then, was beyond 
all question a great man. Out of the mouth of the enemies 
who hated him mqst, we have the strongest testimony. 

He was no braggart like Cleon, no declaimer like Robes- 
pierre ; but a man of admirable sagacity, of the clearest 
insight into human nature and personal character, of the 
soundest judgment, and a courage so unbienching, a resolu- 
tion so magnanimous, that in this respect none of Plutarch's 
heroes, no knight in the most brilliant age of chivalry, has 
ever excelled him. He was, says one of the contemporaries, 
a strong man. In the dark perils of war, in the high places 
of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire when it 
had gone out in all others. But great men have their gra- 
dations. There are those who tower above their competi- 
tors, as Mont Blanc lifts itself above the other Alpine 
heights. There are a few whose names we instinctively 
recall when we think of transcendent ability. They are 
such as Alexander, as Csesar, as Napoleon. No man thinks 
of putting them on the same level with ordinary conquerors 
or statesmen. Brasidas was a great man, but he was not 
Alexander ; Scipio was a great man, but he was not Caesar ; 
Ney and Massena were great men, but they were fit only to 
be the marshals of Napoleon. And this, I think, will be seen 
to be a characteristic of these stars of the first magnitude, 
that their light shines on the whole sphere of human 
thought. It is not this or that work which they are com- 
petent to do ; but whatever it be that is most difficult to 
man, and yet possible, these men show themselves compe- 
tent to effect when the occasion presents itself. 



68 sterling's southern orator. 

XXX. 
THE SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION.— T. L. Anderson. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, has this great country — rich in 
power, more rich in promise — no boon at all for those who, 
at the peril of their lives, saved her cities from pillage, her 
daughters from a brutal foreign soldiery or an unrelenting 
savage foe? " Tell it not in Gath," publish not this wither- 
ing shame among the nations of the earth, lest they declare 
it is republics only can be so ungrateful. 

Sir, many of these men have already passed away. They 
went down to their graves, many of them stricken with 
poverty, emaciated with disease, or scarred with wounds 
acquired in their country's service. Oh, how sad their end ! 
Perchance their dying eye, as it grew dim, looked on some 
distant dome or staff, on which floated, in heaven's free 
breeze, that flag, that glorious flag, those a broad stripes and 
bright stars," to which, in the perilous fight, their patriotic 
hearts had so often turned, in the days of their strength and 
their vigor. It was the same flag still ; but, alas ! with 
what crushing effect did the mournful reflection force itself 
upon them : " My country has forgotten, has neglected me. 
Ungrateful country ! In my age it thinks not of my youth, 
and I die in poverty, unhonored by those for whom the 
strength of my manhood was expended." Sir, this is no 
fancy sketch : too truly has it been realized by many of 
those noble men who have now passed away. They have 
gone — fought their last battle — met their last foe : peace be 
to their ashes ! 



XXXI. 

THE CLOSE OF A PATRIOT'S LIFE.— William Wirt. 

How happy is the man whom the applause, the gratitude, 
and the blessings of his country follow at the close of life 
into the shades of retirement, to enjoy that supreme of all 
earthly happiness, the retrospect of a life well and greatly 
spent in the service of his country and mankind! The 
successful warrior, who lias desolated whole empires for his 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 69 

own aggrandizement, the successful usurper of his country's 
rights and liberties, may have their hours of swelling pride, 
in which they may look back with a barbarous joy upon 
the triumph of their talents, and feast upon the adulation of 
the sycophants that surround them ; but, night and silence 
come, and conscience takes her turn. The bloody field rises 
upon the startled imagination. The shades of the slaughter- 
ed innocents stalk, in terrific procession, before the couch. 
The agonizing cries of countless widows and orphans in- 
vade the ear. The bloody dagger of the assassin plays, in 
airy terror, before the vision. Violated liberty lifts her 
avenging lance; and a down- trodden nation rises before 
them, in all the majesty of its wrath. What are the hours 
of a splendid wretch like this, compared with those that 
shed their poppies and their roses upon the pillows of the 
peaceful and virtuous patriot ? Every night bringing to him 
the balm and health of repose, and every morning offering 
to him " his history in a nation's eyes !" This, this it is to 
be greatly virtuous; and be this the only ambition that 
shall ever touch an American bosom ! 



XXXII. 
WATER.— John B. Gough. 



Sweet, beautiful water — clear, pure, refreshing! — that 
never brings sorrow to those who use it. Pour but a drop 
of this upon the drooping flower, and it will lift its head as 
if to bless you ; apply but one drop of man's distilling, and 
the flower withers and dies. Bestow but a goblet of this 
on the famishing traveller in the sun-parched desert, and 
how gladly would he return it o'erflowing with gold ; for 
he is dying with thirst, and those poisonous draughts are 
but mockery now. Mark yonder party bound on that fish- 
ing excursion. They are out upon the briny deep — they 
have been becalmed and detained for several days beyond 
their intended absence. Now they are reaching the shore, 
and hear their first shriek as they land : " Water ! bring us 
water!" u Why, are you not provided with drink ?" "Yes, 
but we want water — water, — sweet, beautiful, life-giving 
water:" — brewed in the bosom of nature — brewed in the 



70 sterling's southern orator. 

green, sunny vale, where the red deer runs and the child 
loves to play. Sweet, beautiful water ! — brewed in the 
running brook, the rippling fountain, and the laughing 
rill — in the limpid cascade, as it joyfully leaps down the 
side of the mountain. Brewed in yonder mountain-top, 
whose granite peaks glitter like gold bathed in the morning 
sun — brewed in the sparkling dew-drop : sweet, beautiful 
water ! — brewed in the crested wave of the ocean-deeps, 
driven by storm, breathing its terrible anthem to the God 
of the sea — brewed in the fleecy foam, and the whitened 
spray as it hangs like a speck over the distant cataract — 
brewed in the clouds of heaven: sweet, beautiful water! 
As it sings in the rain-shower and dances in the hail-storm 
— as it comes sweeping down in feathery flakes, clothing 
the earth in a spotless mantle of white — always beautiful ! 
Distilled in the golden tissues that paint the western sky at 
the setting of the sun, and the silvery tissues that veil the 
midnight moon — sweet, health-giving, beautiful water ! Dis- 
tilled in the rainbow of promise, whose warp is the rain- 
drop of earth, and whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven — 
sweet, beautiful water ! 



XXXIII. 
GENIUS.— Portland Tribune. 



Genius is displayed not alone in grandeur and magnifi- 
cence ; it is seen in the cotton-gin, as well as in the Prin- 
cipia of Newton ; in the Iliad of Homer, as well as in the 
lever of Archimedes ; it was in the song of Miriam ; it was 
in the plans of Washington for the surprise of Cornwallis at 
Trenton ; it was in the daring of Napoleon at the bridge of 
Lodi. It constructs edifices, fills up valleys, bridges the At- 
lantic, and hangs the railway on the verge of the mountain 
cliff. 

It was the genius of benevolence that sent Howard on his 
tour of philanthropy, taught Wesley to lay down principles 
whose existence was to be felt through long vistas of coming 
generations, and urged Father Mathew, the apostle of tem- 
perance, to the vast labor he has undertaken of removing a 
plague-spot from the escutcheon of that land whose genius 



sterling's southern orator. 71 

has filled the world with admiration, as her sons have em- 
blazoned her name upon the scroll of honor with a pen of 
fire. 

Genius was in Caesar's " Veni, vidi, vici ;" it was in the 
words of Nelson at Trafalgar, "England expects every 
man to do his duty ;" in the language of Franklin, " Where 
liberty dwells, there is my country;" in the last speech of 
Emmett, " Until Ireland is free, let not my epitaph be writ- 
ten." It was in that thought that adorned the grave of the 
dead with the weeping-willow, that emblem of perpetual 
sorrow. Earth, ocean, and the thoughts of eternity are full 
of genius. 



XXXIV. 

EXTENT OF COUNTRY NO BAR TO UNION— 1788. 

Edmund Randolph. 

Extent of country, in my conception, ought to be no bar 
to the adoption of a good government. No extent on earth 
seems to me too great, provided the laws be wisely made 
and executed. The principles of representation and respon- 
sibility may pervade a large as well as a small territory ; 
and tyranny is as easily introduced into a small as into a 
large district. Union, Mr. Chairman, is the rock of our sal- 
vation. Our safety, our political happiness, our existence, 
depend upon the union of these States. Without union, the 
people of this and the other States will undergo the un- 
speakable calamities which discord, faction, turbulence, war, 
and bloodshed have continually produced in other countries. 
Without union, we throw away all those blessings for which 
we have so earnestly fought. Without union, there is no 
peace, sir, in the land. 

The American spirit ought to be mixed with American 
pride — pride to see the Union magnificently triumph. Let 
that glorious pride which once defied the British thunder 
reanimate you again. Let it not be recorded of Americans, 
that, after having performed the molt gallant exploits, after 
having overcome the most astonishing difficulties, and after 
having gained the admiration of the world by their incom- 



72 sterling's southern orator. 

parable valor and policy, they lost their acquired reputation, 
lost their national consequence and happiness, by their own 
indiscretion. Let no future historian inform posterity that 
Americans wanted wisdom and virtue to concur in any 
regular, efficient government. Catch the present moment. 
Seize it with avidity. It may be lost, never. to be regained ; 
and if the Union be lost now, I fear it will remain so for- 
ever. 



XXXV. 
HENRY WINTER DAVIS.— Mr. Creswell. 

The sword may rust in its scabbard, and so let it; but 
free men with free thought and free speech will wage un- 
ceasing war until truth shall be enthroned and sit empress 
of the world. Would to God that he had been spared to 
complete a life of threescore and ten years for the sake of 
his country and posterity ! When I think of the wod he 
would have accomplished had he survived for twenty years, 
I can say, in the language of Fisher Ames, "My heart, pene- 
trated with the remembrance of the man, grows liquid as I 
speak, and I could pour it out like water." 

At the portals of his tomb we may bid farewell to the 
faithful Christian, in the full assurance that a blessed life 
awaits him beyond the grave. Serenely and trustfully he 
has passed from our sight and gone down into the dark 
waters. 

" So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, " 
And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore, 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky." 

From this hall, where as scholar, statesman, and orator he 
shone so brightly, he has disappeared forever. Never again 
will he aiiswer to the roll-call from this desk, respond for 
his country and the rights of man. No more shall we hear 
his fervid eloquence in the day of imminent peril, invoking 
us, who hold the mighty power of peace and war, to dedi- 
cate ourselves, if necd#bc, to the sword, but to accept no 
end of the conflict but absolute triumph for our country. 
He lias gone to answer the great roll-call above, where the 



sterling's southern orator. 73 

"brazen throat of war" is voiceless in the presence of the 
Prince of Peace. Let us habitually turn to his recorded ' 
words, and gather wisdom as from the testament of a de- 
parted sage. 

For the Christian, scholar, statesman, and orator, all good 
men are mourners ; but what shall I say of that grief which 
none can share, the grief of sincere friendship ? 

O my friend ! comforted by the belief that you, whilst 
living, deemed me worthy to be your companion, and loaded 
me with the proofs of your esteem, I shall fondly treasure, 
during my remaining years, the recollection of your smile 
and counsel. Lost to me is the strong arm whereon I have 
so often leaned ; but in that path, which in time past we 
trod most joyfully together, I shall continue, as God shall 
give me to see my duty, with unfaltering, though perhaps 
with unskilful step, right onward to the end. 

Admiring his brilliant intellect and varied acquirements, 
his invincible courage and unswerving fortitude, glorying 
in his good works and fair renown, but, more than all, loving 
the man, I shall endeavor to assuage the bitterness of grief 
by applying to him those words of proud though tearful 
satisfaction, from which the faithful Tacitus drew consola- 
tion for the loss of that noble Roman whom he delighted to 
honor : 

" Quidquid ex Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus, 
manet mansurumque est, in animis hominum, in aeternitate 
temporum, fama rerum." 



xxxvi. 
A WITHERING INVECTIVE.— S. S. Prentiss. 

Need I dwell longer upon this point ? Need I say that 
the defendants are no murderers ? that they acted in self- 
defence, and took life from necessity, not from malice ? 

But there is a murderer — and, strange to say, his name 
appears upon the indictment, not as criminal, but as pros- 
ecutor. His garments are wet with the blood of those 
upon whoso deaths you hold this solemn inquest. Yonder 
he sits, allaying for a moment the hunger of that fierce vul- 
ture, conscience, by casting before it the food of pretended 



74 STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 

regret, and false but apparent eagerness for justice. He 
hopes to appease the manes of his slaughtered victims — 
victims to his falsehood and treachery — by sacrificing upon 
their graves a hecatomb of innocent men. By base mis- 
representations of the conduct of the defendants, he induced 
his prudent friends to attempt a vindication of his pre- 
tended wrongs by violence and bloodshed. His clansmen 
gathered at his call, and followed him for vengeance ; but 
when the fight began, and the keen weapons clashed in 
the sharp conflict — where was this wordy warrior? Ay, 
"Where was Roderick then ?" No " blast upon his bugle 
horn 55 encouraged his companions as they were laying 
down their lives in his quarrel ; no gleam of his dagger in- 
dicated a desire to avenge their fall — with treacherous cow- 
ardice he left them to their fate ; and all his vaunted cour- 
age ended in ignominious flight. Sad and gloomy is the 
path that lies before him. You will in a few moments dash, 
untasted, from his lips the sweet cup of revenge ; to quaff 
whose intoxicating contents he has paid a price that would 
have purchased the goblet of the Egyptian queen. I be- 
hold gathering around him, thick and fast, dark and cor- 
roding cares. That face, which looks so ruddy, and even 
now is flushed with shame and conscious guilt, will from 
this day grow pale until the craven blood shall refuse to 
visit his haggard cheek. In his broken and distorted sleep, 
his dreams will be more fearful than those of the " false, 
perjured Clarence ;" and around his waking pillow, in the 
deep hour of night, will flit the ghosts of his victims, shriek- 
ing their curses in his shrinking ear. Upon his head rests 
all the blood shed in this unfortunate strife. But I dismiss 
him, and do consign him to the furies — trusting, in all 
charity, that the terrible punishment he must suffer from 
the scorpion-lash of a guilty conscience will be considered 
in his last account. 



XXXVII. 

TAXATION FOR DEFENCE.— John C. Calhoun. 

If taxes should become necessary, I do not hesitate to say 
the people will pay cheerfully. . It is for their government 
and their cause, and would be their interest and duty to 



sterling's southern orator. 75 

pay. But it may be, and, I believe, was, said that the na- 
tion will not pay taxes, because the rights violated are not 
worth defending ; or that the defence will cost more than 
the profit. 

Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against this low and 
"calculating avarice" entering this hall of legislation. It 
is only fit for shops and counting-houses, and ought not to 
disgrace the seat of sovereignty by its squalid and vile 
appearance. Whenever it touches sovereign power, the 
nation is ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. It 
is a compromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to 
save the balance. It is too timid to have in itself the laws 
of self-preservation. It is never safe but under the shield 
of honor. Sir, I only know of one principle to make a na- 
tion great, to produce in this country not the form, but real 
spirit of union ; and that is, to protect every citizen in the 
lawful pursuit of his business. He will then feel that he is 
backed by the government ; that its arm is his arms, and 
will rejoice in its increased strength and prosperity. Pro- 
tection and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the road that 
all great nations have trod. Sir, I am not versed in this 
calculating policy, and will not ? therefore, pretend to esti- 
mate in dollars and cents the value of national independence 
or national affection. I cannot dare to measure in shillings 
and pence the misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our 
impressed seamen ; nor even to value our shipping, commer- 
cial, and agricultural losses under the orders in council and 
the British system of blockade. I hope I have not condemn-, 
ed any prudent estimate of the means of a country, before it 
enters on a war. This is wisdom ; the other, folly. 



XXXVIII. 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH.— Rev. James H. Tuorxwell, D.D. 

This love of truth which I have been endeavoring to 
recommend will be of the very last importance to you, to 
guard you against the deceits of the world. Man walketh 
in a vain show. Untutored by experience, the young par- 
ticularly are slow to suspect that the prospects of good, 
of pleasure, opulence, and power, which stretch in rich luxu- 
riance before them, are an empty pageant. Unskilled in 



76 sterling's southern orator. 

the treachery of the heart and the wiles of the tempter, 
they can hardly be persuaded that the gilded colors in 
which imagination adorns the future are only a splendid 
drapery under which are concealed disappointment, sorrow, 
and vexation. They have yet to learn the emptiness of 
pleasure, the agonies of power, and the vanity of wealth. 
Impetuous in their passions, ardent in their temper, and 
ignorant of life, they are prone to fix their affections upon 
some of those beggarly elements which will crumble into 
ashes at the touch of experience. The prince of darkness, 
intent upon their ruin, plies his fatal arts of enchantment to 
lull them into a sleep of false security, to exclude religion 
from their thoughts, and to conduct them by deceitful 
promises of good, by lies congenial with his nature, to the 
shades of death. This, my young friends, is your position, 
and it is one of immense peril. The world, the flesh, and hell, 
all conspire, by glossing falsehood, to seduce you to perdi- 
tion. A covering is spread upon the grave and the pit, and 
the ways of sin are adorned with all that can please the 
eye, fascinate the ear, or enchant the heart. Your security 
against these dangers is conviction of the truth. The word 
of God, which is preeminently the truth, and in which a 
truth-loving heart will lead you to rest, dissipates the spell, 
reveals the snare, and delivers from the plot. It paints life 
in its true colors, tears the mask from the face of guilt, dis- 
robes the world of its gorgeous drapery, and points to Him 
who is emphatically the way, the truth, and the life. All 
.the rays of moral truth ultimately centre in the cross of the 
Redeemer ; and we never reach the summit of wisdom until 
we attain that life which is alike the knowledge of the 
Father and of His Son Jesus Christ. Every one, says the 
Saviour, that is of the truth, heareth my voice. None perish 
but those who love darkness rather than light, A deceived 
heart turns them aside. 



XXXIX. 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.— J. G. Baldwin. 

That there is such a nation as the United States — that 
this nation, answering the wants of the people, has grown 
to be a first-rate power in the world — that it has run aNbright 



sterling's southern orator. 77 

career of glory, and performed a beneficent mission upon 
earth — that it has hopes of a farther growth so great that 
the present seems but the initial point of a grand future — 
that these things are so is in no small degree owing to the 
labors and patriotism of Alexander Hamilton. The most 
popular and brilliant passages of our history are those which 
imitated his energy, and bore the stamp of his nationality 
of spirit. And if the flag which symbolizes that nationality 
has grown to be a sacred thing — if the stars upon it have been 
lit up with a fadeless lustre — if, on the frontier post, the 
soldier looks up to it with pride — if, as it floats from the 
mast-head, the sailor-boy from the shrouds hails it with exult- 
ing shout as it streams out over his head — if commerce 
feels safe upon all the paths of the sea — if the citizen is pro- 
tected in whatever foreign lands — if all the multiplied bless- 
ings of a free government have become the special heritage 
of this great people — if the citizen of Massachusetts or of 
Georgia feels a still higher pride in that he is an American 
citizen, and, meeting upon common soil, claims and receives 
the consideration and welcome of national brotherhood — if 
under the plastic impress of this nationality is illustrated 
the grateful spectacle of a multitude of men in the full pride 
and glory of manhood, meeting upon the shores of a strange 
sea, coming from many places, and reared amidst differing 
local circumstances and influences, yet becoming moulded 
into one homogeneous and harmonious people, themselves 
founders of a new empire : let us, for these things, remem- 
ber with gratitude the man, the first in genius as the first 
in energy, who dedicated and who consecrated both to the 
union of these States, and to the triumph of those national 
ideas from which such splendid results have come. 



XIi. 
DESTINY OF THE UNITED STATES.— H. W. Hilliard. 

Let no one accuse me of seeing wild visions, and dream- 
ing impossible dreams. I am only stating what may be 
done, and what will be done. We may most shamefully 
betray the trust reposed in us, — we may most miserably 



78 sterling's southern orator. 

defeat the fond hopes entertained of us. We may become 
the scorn of tyrants, and the jest of slaves. From our fate, 
oppression may assume a bolder front of insolence, and its 
victims sink into a darker despair. In that event, how 
unspeakable will be our disgrace, — with what weight of 
mountains will the infamy lie upon our souls. 

Remember that we can have none of those consolations 
which sustain the patriot who mourns over the undeserved 
misfortunes of his country. Our Rome cannot fall, and we 
be innocent. No conqueror will chain us to the car of his 
triumph, — no countless swarm of Huns and Goths will bury 
the memorials and trophies of civilized life beneath a living 
tide of barbarism. Our own selfishness, our own neglect, 
our own passions, and our own vices will furnish the 
elements of our destruction. With our own hands we shall 
tear down the stately edifice of our glory. We shall die 
by self-inflicted wounds. 

But we will not talk of themes like these. We will not 
think of failure, dishonor, and despair. We will elevate our 
minds to the contemplation of our high duties, and the 
great trust committed to us. We will resolve to lay the 
foundations of our prosperity on that rock of private virtue 
which cannot be shaken, until the laws of the moral world 
are reversed. From our own breasts shall flow the salient 
springs of national increase. Then our success, our happi- 
ness, our glory, will be as inevitable as the inferences of 
mathematics. 

The whole will not grow weak by the increase of its 
parts. Our growth will be like that of the mountain oak, 
which strikes its roots more deeply into the soil, and clings 
to it with a closer grasp, as its lofty head is exalted, and 
its broad arms stretched out. The loud burst of joy and 
gratitude, which is breaking from the full hearts of a mighty 
people, will never cease to be heard. No chasms of sullen 
silence will interrupt its course, — no discordant notes of 
sectional madness mar the general harmony. Year after 
year will increase it, by tributes from now unpeopled soli- 
tudes. The furthest West shall hear it and rejoice — the 
Oregon shall swell it with the voice of its waters — and the 
Rocky Mountains shall fling back the glad sound from their 
snowy crests. 



sterling's southern orator, 79 

XLI. 

THE BEST MEANS FOR SECURING PEACE.— G. Morris. 

Sir, I repeat to you that I wish for peace ; real, lasting, 
honorable peace. To obtain and secur%this blessing, let us, 
by a bold and decisive conduct, convince the powers of 
Europe that we are determined to defend our rights ; that 
we will not submit to insult ; that we will not bear degrada- 
tion. This is the conduct which becomes a generous people. 
This conduct will command the respect of the world ; nay, 
sir, it may rouse all Europe to a proper sense of their situa- 
tion. They see that the balance of pow T er, on which their 
liberties depend, is, if not destroyed, in extreme danger. 
They know that the dominion of France has been extended 
by the sword over millions who groan in the servitude of 
their new masters. These unwilling subjects are ripe for 
revolt. The empire of the Gauls is not, like that of Rome, 
secured by political institutions. It may yet be broken. 
But, whatever may be the conduct of others, let us act as 
becomes ourselves. I cannot believe, with my honorable 
colleague, that three fourths of America are opposed to 
vigorous measures. I cannot believe that they will meanly 
refuse to pay the sum needful to vindicate their honor and 
support their independence. Sir, this is a libel on the 
people of America. They will disdain submission to the 
proudest sovereign on earth. They have not lost the spirit 
of "76. But, sir, if they are so base as to barter their 
rights for gold — if they are so vile that they will not defend 
their honor — they are unworthy of the rank they enjoy, and 
it is no matter how soon they are parcelled out among 
better masters. 



XLlt 
UNION OF REASON WITH RELIGION.— Rev. TnoMAS F. Davis. 

The mind which seeks its glory without religion pre- 
pares itself but wretchedness of existence, and the frenzy 
of despair. We deny not the supremacy of reason. We 
would not depreciate the value of knowledge. The very 



80 



STERLING S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 



object of this address has been to elevate both. But never 
would we separate reason and knowledge from the throne 
of God. We would not have them to lie in darkness, but 
to light their fires at the altar of Jesus Christ. We would 
have the illumination of reason receive guidance and sanc- 
tion from the u spirit of truth." Let its influence be from 
holiness — its authority from heaven. In this beautiful blend- 
ing of the rational and the moral — this union of reason with 
religion — this mutual progress of mind and holiness, is the 
true idea of intellectual culture ; in these must we seek our 
highest accomplishments ; in these, our purest enjoyments. 
By them we must prepare ourselves to be useful on earth — 
to be blessed in heaven. Here, then, gentlemen, we would 
have you start right, and affectionately assure you that 
now is the time. Seeds are sown within you of glorious 
light. It is the spring-time of life. The moral earth is 
opening and yielding under genial influences. The dews 
and rains from above fall sweetly, gently, productively. 
Prepare for an abundant and honorable harvest. 



XLIII. 
SCEPTICISM.— B. F. Mooke, Esq. 

Freedom of opinion is a privilege which no tyranny can 
fetter ; but it is neither safe nor becoming to express every 
conviction of the mind. By the judgment of the enlighten- 
ed world, Christianity is essential to the happiness of men, 
and he that would publicly question its authenticity should 
stand on higher ground than mere opinion. Has speculative 
scepticism ever added a feather to the wing of science, or 
imparted to art a polish, or bestowed on labor a sinew ? 
What crime has it ever reformed, what virtue improved ? 
And practical scepticism — has it ever erected a cabin for the 
unsheltered, furnished a garment for the naked, or provided 
food for the hungry ? — unlocked a prison door, or given a 
cup of cold water to the thirsty? — character to an individual, 
or just renown to a nation ? It is the reported saying of 
an eminent philosopher, upon seeing an infidel in a tempest 
beseeching his safety from Providence, that scepticism 



sterling's southern orator. 81 

might do for the land, but was wholly, unsuited to the 
waves. 

But it is now more than the precept of wisdom, — it is the 
experience of a trying age, that whilst, like a coward, it 
disowns itself amidst the storms of the ocean, it raises like 
a demon moral storms upon the land. It is fit for no place 
— neither where the elements frown nor where the ele- 
ments smile. In the shadow of death it is despair : — in the 
sunshine of health it is the licentious flame, ready to fire the 
sleeping passions, and spread their blaze over the institu- 
tions of justice and mercy. 



XLIV. 

RESOURCES OF A CULTIVATED MIND.— Rev. Thomas F. Davis. 

Happy is the man who, while he lives without, lives also 
a higher and better life within — who has in his own bosom 
the invisible power which both sustains life and raises him 
above its unhappiness and injury. Happy he who can, at 
any moment, turn aside from its din and its dust, its tumult 
and its troubles, to calm retreat and refreshing waters ; who 
can look upon and understand, and yet not be affected by 
its low employments, its petty cares, its sordid avarice, and 
its vulgar pleasures. Amid it all, he regards but his own 
duty. Through it all, with undefiled garments, he passes 
up to his own castle on a rock. Thence, as from a citadel 
of strength invulnerable, he looks out upon the poor strug- 
gles below, not with complacent pride, but with the calm 
composure of freedom — the pure and blessed serenity of a 
mind at ease — unmoved and immovable. Here is that 
which is our own — with which a " stranger intermeddleth 
not," which no man taketh from us. Here we can smile at 
the world's frowns — defy its enmity — and defeat its malice. 
We can ever rise above the infirmities of nature, and exult 
in that in us which decays not. What a noble instance of 
the mind's triumph have we in Milton ! With what admi- 
ration, amounting to reverence, do we behold the poor old 
blind man, as "broken by the storms of state," and driven 
from the world, he paid the debt he promised to posterity! 
With what pathos of feeling do we hear his appeal for thai 



82 sterling's southern orator. 

illumination inwardly which was lost to his bodily organs 
— and with the faith of a Christian and conscious power of 
a poet, tune his heart to sacred themes, and fling from it 
strains that shall never die. 



XLV. 

AVARICE AND PRODIGALITY TO BE ALIKE AVOIDED. 

William H. Battle. 

Avarice cuts off man from his brother, and concentrates 
all his hopes, wishes, and affections upon himself. It turns 
a deaf ear .to the voice of sympathy, and is callous to the 
calls of gratitude and friendship. Its devotee has no feel- 
ing, no hope, no love but for self. Cold as his money-bags, 
his heart grows harder and harder, until it can claim kin- 
dred with naught but the nether millstone. It is said to be 
our national vice, whether truly or not, I will not now stop 
to inquire, but charge you to avoid it as you would the 
pestilence — fly from its approach as you would the desolat- 
ing tornado or burning sirocco. But, in shunning Scylla, 
beware of Charybdis. Prodigality and < extravagance pro- 
duce results almost as disastrous as those of avarice. 
Without a proper attention is paid to providing suitably 
for yourself, and for those of your own household, and the 
exercise of a prudent economy in the management of your 
affairs, they will soon become involved, debts will accumu- 
late, and pecuniary embarrassment and distress will not be 
slow to follow on ; and then you will have nothing left to 
you but the name of a freeman ; for a state of indebtedness 
beyond the ability to pay is essentially a state of slavery. 
I allude not to the power which the law gives to the credi- 
tor over the body of his debtor, but to that which he exer- 
cises over his feelings, his principles, and his character. I 
mean no offence by the declaration ; but all observation will 
show that I do not speak too strongly when I say that the con- 
dition of a debtor, who is utterly unable to meet his engage- 
ments, is a condition of thraldom — thraldom, not of the 
body, if you please, but what is infinitely worse — of the 
soul. In bitter experience of the truth of this remark it 



sterling's southern orator. 83 

was that the poet, in an epistle equally remarkable for 
beauty of language and correctness of sentiment, advised a 
young friend: 

" To catch dame fortune's golden smile, 
Assiduous wait upon her, 
And gather gear by every wile 
That's justified by honor : 
Not for to hide it in a hedge ; 
Not for a train attendant ; 
But for the glorious privilege 
Of being independent." 



XLVI. 

THE TRUE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE.— George Davis, 

A rich and well-stored mind is the only true philoso- 
pher's stone, extracting pure gold from all the base material 
around. It can create its own beauty, wealth, power, hap- 
piness. It has no dreary solitudes. The past ages are its 
possession, and the long line of the illustrious dead are all 
its friends. Whatever the world has seen of brave and 
noble, beautiful and good, it can command. It mingles in 
all the grand and solemn scenes of history, and is an actor 
in every great and stirring event. It is by the side of Bay- 
ard as he stands alone upon the bridge, and saves the army 
— it weeps over the true heart of chivalry, the gallant 
Sidney, as with dying hand he puts away the cup from his 
parched and fevered lips. It leaps into the yawning gulf 
with Curtius — follows the white plume of Navarre at Ivry 
— rides to Chalgrove field with Hampden — mounts the 
scaffold with Russell — and catches the dying prayer of the 
noble Sir Harry Vane. It fights for glory at the Granicus, 
for fame at Agincourt, for empire at Waterloo, for power 
on the Ganges, for religion in Palestine, for country at 
Thermopylae, and for freedom at Bunker Hill. It marches 
with Alexander, reigns with Augustus, sings with Homer, 
teaches with Plato, pleads with Demosthenes, loves with 
Petrarch, is imprisoned with Paul, suffers with Stephen, 
and dies with Christ. It feels no tyranny, and knows no 
subjection. Misfortunes cannot subdue it, power cannot 
crush it, unjust laws cannot oppress it. Ever steady, faith- 



81 sterling's southern orator. 

fill, and true, shining by night as by clay, it abides with you 
always and everywhere. 



XL VII. 
IMPORTANCE OF GENERAL EDUCATION.— Wm. B. Shepard. 

We are trying in this country an extraordinary experi- 
ment in government, an experiment which gives to numbers 
the entire and almost exclusive control over the lives, the 
property, and the well-being of the community. Is it 
not, then, absurd to contend that it is not the duty of the 
state to see that every citizen is qualified by education to 
exercise these delicate and important trusts? Lycurgus, 
the wisest of lawgivers, when he undertook the reformation 
of the morals of Sparta, laid the foundation of his system 
in the education of every citizen who might, by any possi- 
bility, be called into the service of his country. The sim- 
plest husbandman prepares his ground with care before he 
intrusts to it his seed, or before he expects a product. Is it 
not more absurd to expect order, sobriety of deportment, 
and all the virtues of a good citizen, , where every wild pas- 
sion, every vicious propensity, engendered by pride and 
fostered by ignorance, have been permitted to take root, 
and choke by their noxious exuberance the few good seed 
which a generous nature may have planted ? The age of 
power and force is passing away ; that of artifice and chi- 
cane is succeeding : the race is no longer to the swift, nor 
the battle to the strong ; let the understandings of the peo- 
ple, by which alone they can be effectually controlled, be 
correctly cultivated, and our fair land will no longer be con- 
vulsed by those scenes of turbulence and violence which 
threaten disgrace, if not destruction, to our institutions. 

Wherever the cause of literature and education is in- 
volved, be found their firm friends, their steady and unyield- 
ing advocates ; and rest assured, in doing so, you will do 
more to advance the cause of virtuous freedom, and to bene- 
fit your country, than by ages of barren and idle declama- 
tion about liberty and equality : 



sterling's southern orator. 85 



For earth is sick 
And heaven is weary of the hollow sounds 
Which men and nations use, whene'er they speak 
Of truth and justice. 



XIiVIII. 

MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF,— Rev. W. S. Plumer, D.D. 

A modern writer assigns as a reason why man should 
not be regarded as accountable for his belief, that the oppo- 
site doctrine leads to persecution. If man were responsible 
to his fellow-man for his religious belief, then, indeed, those 
monsters of iniquity who have gloated over the agonies, 
screams, and mangled limbs of their victims might plead 
in their justification the doctrine maintained in this lecture. 
But the Scriptures teach that God alone is Lord of the 
conscience. " Who art thou that judgest another man's 
servant ? To his own master he standeth or falleth," is the 
terrible rebuke of Scripture to all who invade the divine 
prerogative, and undertake to punish men in matters in 
which Jehovah has said, " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, 
saith the Lord." The pains and penalties due to misbelief 
of God's testimony, and to all other offences of the same 
class, can be fitly judged of and condignly inflicted by 
none but God himself. A more daring outrage cannot be 
perpetrated by any creature than to rush into the judgment- 
seat of God, and deal out blows of vengeance for offences 
the punishment of which the Almighty has reserved ex- 
clusively to himself. In civil and social affairs men may 
make us feel their just displeasure for cmr wrong belief and 
course of action under it ; but in religious affairs an attempt 
to punish us by the laws and courts of man deserves the 
execration of men, and will, I doubt not, receive the repro- 
bation of God, 



86 sterling's southern orator. 

XLIX. 

SHORT WORDS .*— Rev. G. W. McPhail. 

That part of our speech which comes from our sires far 
back in the days of yore is made up in large part of those 
short words which we can speak with one pulse of the 
breath and one stroke of the tongue. The stream of time, 
through a long tract of years, and from lands not our own, 
has brought down to us a vast drift of new and strange 
terms, poor as they are long ; and by which w r e lose in 
strength more than we gain in sound. But the good old 
stock of words is not lost. They shine out here and there 
from the heap, in bright points : like stars when a fog dims 
the air, or the face of the sky is dark with clouds. It will 
pay us for our toil to mine out these gems, and string them 
on the chain of our thoughts, which will then shine with a 
new light ; and, though the tongue may lose in sound, it 
will be all the more fit to speak all that the deep soul can 
feel. The heart beats throb by throb, and thus the tongue 
should keep in tune while it vents the heart's joys and 
pains. The arts of life and the lore of the head may call 
for terms cold and long ; but let all that the heart thinks 
and feels come from the depths of the soul in " thoughts 
that breathe and words that burn." So sing the rapt bards 
of earth as they twang the lyre, and when the fire of their 
souls sheds its own light, and gilds the scene with its own 
charms. 



L. 

% 

VIRTUE AND INTELLIGENCE WILL DETERMINE OUR 
NATIONAL DESTINY.— J. Y. Mason. 

The magnitude of our country's destiny must depend, 
however, under Providence, upon the virtue and intelli- 
gence of her individual citizens ; and to all of us, therefore, 
she addresses the solemn appeal of patriotism and humanity. 

* It will be observed that all tlie words in the following extract are 
monosyllables, 



sterling's SOUTHERN " ORATOR. 87 

• 
While, therefore, we endeavor to appreciate as it deserves 
our glorious heritage of liberty and happiness, let us also 
appreciate the vast responsibility by which it is accom- 
panied ! Living under the only free government on earth, 
upon us are concentrated the dearest political hopes of man. 
Wherever glitters the crown of despotism, or faintly throbs 
the heart of freedom — wherever toil goes unrewarded, or 
human right is crushed beneath oppression — from patriots 
of all climes, and the oppressed of every land — come, 
blended to our ears, voices alike of warning and entreaty ; 
all invoking us to be faithful to our holy trust, and to 
preserve it sacredly for the civil redemption of the world. 
The voices of the past come mingled with the voices of the 
present, and amid the graves of fallen empires, and the 
splendid ruins of departed greatness, we gather anew the 
solemn lessons of individual duty. Let us receive it with 
submission, and reverence, and awe ; and let it increase the 
warmth of our patriotism, the earnestness of our virtue, and 
the devotedness of our toil. If we would discharge aright 
the duty which we owe our country and to mankind, let us 
begin by discharging aright the duty which we owe our- 
selves. 

" This above -all, to tliine own self be true ; 
And it rnust follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then he false to any man." 



LI. 

IMPORTANCE OP FEMALE SOCIETY IN THE IMPROVEMENT 
OF MIND AND CHARACTER.— James Iredell. 

Woman has been ordained to perform a most important 
part in the moral government of the world. The mother 
forms the first rudiments of the infant mind, and instils into 
the infant bosom the first principles of virtuous action. The 
sister refines and softens the harsher manners and more 
turbulent feelings of the brother. The passion for a vir- 
tuous mistress purifies the sentiments and elevates the 
thoughts of the lover ; while she binds him in the chains 
of despotism only to lead him in the paths of honor. The 
wife brings to the aid of her husband a tender sympathy 



88 STERLING'S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 

that robs sorrow of its sting ; a fortitude that never quails 
beneath calamity or distress ; a prudence ever vigilant, and 
an instinctive sagacity that never falters. Such was the in- 
fluence of woman, even in the days when her sole titles to 
admiration and respect were her personal charms and the 
virtues of her heart. Happily, in our time, education, 
without diminishing these claims, has added others of the 
highest character. The cultivation of her intellect has left 
man little to boast of his assumed superiority. Where can 
you meet united such refined intelligence, such delicacy 
of taste, such purity of thought, such utter loathsomeness 
of vice in every shape ; such fortitude in every situation in 
which we are called on to bear and to suffer, as in woman ? 
Can you fail to be improved by an association which offers 
to you such examples, clothed in the most captivating form ? 
Not only will you feel the influence on your mental powers, 
but your sentiments will be freed from all their grossness. 
In youth, there can scarcely be found a more efficient cor- 
rective of vicious propensities than the society of virtuous 
and enlightened woman. 



LII. 

QUEER PEOPLE.— Anonymous. 

" On, dear, oh ! this world quite strange is, 
Every day brings forth new changes I" 

That's a fact ! Indeed, these changes sometimes come so 
fast that a fellow can't keep up with them. 

Well, well ; this is a queer world. No, it isn't, either. 
I've made a mistake — 'tis a pretty snug little affair, after 
all. 'Tis the people that are queer. Ah ! now I have the 
right end of the rope. Yes ; there are a great many queer 
people in this pretty, rolling world of ours. 

But of all the queer people here below, the croaking, 
growling, grumbling, gossiping, snarling, snapping, sour, 
sulky, fidgety, fretful, fault-finding, tattling, backbiting spe- 
cies are the queerest. And they are queer ; or else I don't 
understand the word. 

They think every body wrong but themselves ; and I'm 
sure that's queer. 5 Tis queer they can't see that the best 



sterling's southern orator. 89 

people in the world are the most candid, open-hearted, 
affable, kind, charitable, free, and unsuspecting ; but then 
they wouldn't be queer, if they saw it ; and, as they love 
to be queer, they won't see it ! 

It is queer they don't know that people who deserve the 
most censure themselves are most apt to be always blaming 
I and scolding their neighbors. 

It is queer they never found out that those who are so 
keen-sighted as to see only other peoples faults are stone- 
blind in seeing their own. 

'Tis queer they never learned the application of the Sa- 
viour's words to their own case : "Thou hypocrite, first 
cast the beam out of thine own eye." Yes ; 'tis queer ; but 
then, if all this wasn't queer, they wouldn't be queer ; and 
then they'd fight with themselves ; or, like the Kilkenny 
cats, eat themselves for being like other people. And so 
they go through life, fretting at every thing that isn't as 
queer as themselves. 

A fretting man or woman is something like a wasp ; (how- 
ever, to the honor of the wasp be it said, he won't sting you 
unless you disturb him ;) but a fault-finding, fretful, peevish, 
dissatisfied mortal goes through life, buzzing and stinging 
without provocation. 

Ah ! my friends, never get queer! It is useless. It makes 
nothing come out right. It sets no broken bones ; it stops 
no leaks ; it gathers no spilt milk ; it mends no smashed 
pitchers ; it fattens no pigs ; it cures no spoiled hay ; it saves 
no damaged grain ; it changes no east wind ; it makes no- 
body love you ; it only makes people laugh ; for they know 
that barking dogs never bite. I wonder if there are any 
queer people in this house ? I reckon not, though. 



Lin. 
AMERICAN WOMEN.— J. Y. Mason. 

Devoted in patriotism, and ever ready to act on the noble 
principle, Solus reipublicm suprema lex, our countrymen 
have yet neglected nothing which was calculated to adorn 
domestic life and promote individual happiness. Female 



90 sterling's southern orator. 

education has, therefore, always been a subject of primary 
attention. 

Elevated to her appropriate position in society, adorned, 
refined, and accomplished by careful instruction, the Ameri- 
can woman is the happy companion of the American free- 
man y gladdening his heart by her smile of confidence and 
love, and cheering him in his great career of public duty 
by her voice of counsel and approbation. Glorious as our 
institutions are, their fruit would have turned to ashes 
without the lovely association of the softer sex, fitted by 
education to be the friend, the joy, the pride of American 
patriots. 



LIV. 
WASHINGTON AND CLAY.— R. M. Charlton. 

Above the bosom of the broad Potomac, a hill lifts its 
head on high, and throws its shadows on the dancing wave. 
There, on that gentle declivity, is a vault, and there, fast 
mouldering into dust, is a noble and gallant heart, that 
throbbed once with the purest patriotism, the highest, 
loftiest courage. There withers the arm that struck down 
the hosts of the enemy, and flung to the breeze the banner 
of our freedom. There, the feet are at rest that plunged 
through ice and snow, that trod the burning sands ; and the 
mind that conceived, and the spirit that nourished, and the 
iron energy that executed, and the bold and noble man 
whose form contained all these, and to whom, under God, 
we this day owe our greatness and glory, all are buried 
there. No unhallowed foot tramples upon that sacred soil. 
The rude laugh is hushed, and the fierce strife restrained ; 
and with tearful eyes, and uncovered brows, generations 
have stood, generations will stand, around and about the 
grave of Washington. 

And why? Was it simply because he was a mighty 
warrior? So was Napoleon. Was it because he struck 
boldly for his country's honor ? So did thousands besides 
him. It was these ; but it was more. It was because he 
added to his powerful mind the pure and lofty principles 
of morality, and crowned the rest by a heavenly faith, a 
confiding hope, a holy life. - 



sterling's southern orator. 91 

Never be ashamed, my young friends, of being esteemed 
religious. If any mock you, if any ask you what courageous, 
what noble mind has ever embraced its holy teachings, point 
them to that tomb, beside yon bounding river, and answer, 
" Washington." 

Another name should here be mentioned. The tears are 
still in the eyes of this great nation, the heart of our country 
is still throbbing with unfeigned sorrow, at the loss of one 
who was chief among the orators, the patriots, the sages of 
America. Amid the pride of station, the crowd of honors, 
the cheering uproar of applause ; surrounded by prosperity, 
by friends, by fame, — the still, small voice of the messenger 
from heaven whispered to his heart, " All this is not thy 
rest; follow thou me." And he obeyed; first doubtfully, 
then willingly, and at the close gladly ; and so life sweetly, 
beautifully passed away, leaving the name of Henry Clay 
dear to us for his brave, and patriotic, and splendid achieve- 
ments, but dearer to the Christian heart for the humility, 
and faith, and hope which clustered around life's closing 
scenes. Tread we lightly over his honored grave ! Mourn 
we bitterly our country's loss, cherish we ever his glorious 
memory ! And believe not, my friends, that these are the 
only examples I could bring : ten thousand times ten thou- 
sand of bright and pure intellects, of indomitable, fearless 
courage, have acknowledged the same sway, have worshipped 
at the same shrine, have gloried in this homage and given 
their blood as a cement to their faith. 



LV. 
PROFANE SWEARING.— Rev. R. Hall. 

Among the proofs of the degeneracy of our manners is 
that almost and universal profaneness which taints our 
daily intercourse. In no nation under heaven, probably, 
has the profanation of sacred terms been so prevalent as in 
this Christian land. 

The name even of the Supreme Being Himself, and the 
words He has employed to denounce the punishments of the 
impenitent, are rarely mentioned but in anger or in sport ; 
so that, were a stranger to our history to witness the style 



92 STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 

of our conversation, lie would naturally infer that we con- 
sidered religion as a detected imposture ; and that nothing 
more remained than, in return for the fears it had inspired, 
to treat it with the insult and derision due to a fallen tyrant. 

It is difficult to account for a practice which gratifies 
no passion and promotes no interest, unless we ascribe it 
to a certain vanity of appearing superior to religious fear, 
which tempts men to make bold with their Maker. If there 
are hypocrites in religion, there are also, strange as it may 
appear, hypocrites in impiety, men who make an ostentation 
of more irreligion than they possess. *" 

An ostentation of this nature, the most irrational in the 
records of human folly, soems to lie at the root of profane 
swearing. It may not be improper to remind such as in- 
dulge this practice that they need not insult their Maker to 
show that they do not fear him ; that they may relinquish 
this vice without danger of being supposed to bedev out, 
and that they may safely leave it to other parts of their 
conduct to efface the smallest suspicion of their piety. 



LVI. 

OPPOSITION OF THE SOUTH TO THE TARIFF— 1833. 
R. Y. Hayne. 

Let not gentlemen so far deceive themselves as to sup- 
pose that the opposition of the South to the protecting 
system is not based on high and lofty principle. It has 
nothing to do with party politics, or the mere elevation of 
men. It rises far above all such considerations. Nor is it 
influenced chiefly by calculations of interest, but is founded 
in much nobler impulses. The instinct of self-interest might 
have taught us an easier way of relieving ourselves from 
this oppression. It wanted but the will to have supplied 
ourselves with every article embraced in the protective 
system, free of duty, without any other participation on our 
part than a simple consent to receive them. But, sir, we 
have scorned, in a contest for our rights, to resort to any 
but open and fair means to maintain them. The spirit with 
which we have entered into this business is akin to that 
which was kindled in the bosom of our fathers when they 



sterling's southern orator. 93 

were made the victims of oppression ; and if it has not dis- 
played itself in the same way, it is because we have ever 
cherished the strongest feelings of confraternity toward our 
brethren, and the warmest and most devoted attachment 

to the Union All parties have for years past 

been looking forward to this crisis for the fulfilment of 
their hopes, or the confirmation of their fears. And God 
grant that the result may be auspicious. 

Sir, I call upon gentlemen on all sides of the House to 
meet us in the true spirit of conciliation and concession. 
Remove, I earnestly beseech you, from among us, this 
never-failing source of contention. Dry up at its source this 
fountain of the waters of bitterness. Restore the harmony 
which has been disturbed — that mutual affection which has 
been impaired. And it is in your power to do it this day ; 
but there is but one means under heaven by which it can — 
by doing equal justice to all. 



LVII. 

ALCOHOL. 

What is alcohol — the intoxicating principle in all spirit- 
uous liquors — and from whence is it obtained ? Is it one 
of those good things which a bounteous Providence has 
given for the comfort and happiness of man ? Ask nature 
in all her wide domain, explore her secret laboratories, for 
this mighty agent, and the indignant response reverbe- 
rates through the deep caverns of earth — It is not in me. 
Neither the mineral, animal, nor vegetable world know 
aught of alcohol. Chemistry has never yet found it among 
the compounds built up by plants. The solar beam which 
reaches, like the finger of God, across the abyss of space, 
and in the laboratory of vegetation takes to pieces poison- 
ous gases and puts together their atoms in new groups, 
which are capable of nourishing the animal body — this 
celestial force never arranged together the atoms which form 
alcohol. On the contrary, it is a product of dissolution — 
of the wreck and decomposition of the principles of human 
food. It is the result not of growth, but of decay — not of 



94 sterling's southern orator. 

life, but of death. It has the same origin as those ma- 
lignant and fatal exhalations which constitute the genius 
of pestilence — the death and putrefaction of organic matter. 
It no more forms a part of the cereal grains from the decay 
and decomposition of which it may be obtained, than does 
the deadly miasmata that arise from putrid vegetation. 



LVIIX. 
MIND.— Rev. A. Baker. 



Whatever is noble in man is mind : it is his earnest of 
immortality — the gem which attracts two worlds. Shall 
man, thus situated, spend his time in tracing out the laws 
of matter, that shall perish, to the utter neglect of mind, 
which shall live forever ? Call the science of mind what 
you will, it must ever stand high in the estimation of the 
wise and learned, and ever be sought as the pilot and 
leader, through the narrow defiles in the road that leads to 
true greatness. 

But in the study of mind it is not to be expected that we 
shall be able to pry into its essence ; the end is gained, for 
all practical purposes, when we trace out the faculties and 
laws by which it is governed ; nor do we expect so much 
to obtain practical knowledge as to acquire an ability to 
wield that which we have already secured. It becomes, 
then, a matter of the first importance, for every student who 
pants for high attainment, whose eye is fixed on greatness, 
to learn skilfully to use his weapon ; he must keep it bright, 
do it honor in every contest, have it ready for the short- 
est notice, and victory is his. The mind is the student's 
weapon of defence — the instrument by which he is to fight 
his way up to the elevation of his hopes ; and that instru- 
ment, when properly tempered and sprung, will enable him 
to dart, like the " bird of the mountains," toward the blaze 
of every science, " with a wing that never tires, and an eye 
that never winks." 



sterling's southern orator. 95 

LIX. 
GENIUS AND LIBERTY.— Rev. E. L. Magoon. 

The object of this address has been to impress deeply on 
your minds the fact, illustrated by all history, that the union 
of genius and thraldom is unnatural and suicidal of all emi- 
nent success. Remember that the perfection of liberty, 
virtue, and knowledge is found in the harmonious blending 
and most exalted cultivation of them all. Education of the 
most liberal character, and eloquence of the most unrestrict- 
ed power, are the natural bonds by which republics are held 
together and perpetuated. No power can drive them to- 
gether with such speed as eloquence will draw them ; noth- 
ing can change customs and conquer prejudices like convic- 
tion. To be the subject of this influence, and to be able to 
wield it, the mind must be free. Resist, with all the faculties 
you possess, the invasion of all kinds of tyranny designed 
to restrict man's endowments and destroy his rights. Seek 
wisdom at the highest sources, and arm yourselves with a 
panoply divine. 

" He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves besides." 

The Scythians of old at their feasts used to strike the 
cords of their bows, to remind themselves of danger. Be 
equally vigilant for your own persons, your country, and 
your God. Early in life nerve yourself for heroic service. 



LX. 

LIVE FOR TOUR STATE.— Ralph Gobkell, Esq. 

If you were called upon to die in defence of yojir State, 
I doubt not the sacrifice of life would be cheerfully made ; 
and if willing to die in her defence, why not willing to live 
for the advancement of her prosperity, honor, and reputation ? 
Long may it be ere 

" The sound of battle's on the breeze," 



96 sterling's southern orator. 

and any of you shall have an opportunity to win bright honor 
in the defence of your country either from foreign aggres- 
sion or domestic commotion. Peace has her trophies as 
well as war, and in her halcyon reign laurels can be gained 
which are neither "stained with blood nor wet with tears." 
Let it be your care and study to preserve and improve the 
institutions handed down from your fathers ; to " develop 
the resources of your State, — call forth its powers ;" wake 
its sleeping energies ; "build up and extend its institutions 
and promote all its great interests," and you will do that 
for which you will be remembered in after times and honor- 
ed by future generations. 



LXI. 

OUR SAFEGUARD AGAINST DELUSION.— A. O. P. Nicholson. 

The history of the world furnishes nothing which bears 
comparison with the past career of our Government in all 
the elements of greatness and prosperity. Its contemplation 
fills the patriotic bosom with emotions of national pride, 
whilst it awakens sentiments of profound gratitude to the 
overruling Providence who has watched our progress as a 
people with paternal care. But I am pained to acknowledge 
that there are "signs in the times" which may well excite 
fearful apprehensions as to the future. I have been greatly 
at fault in my observations, if there is not now an alarming 
tendency in the public mind to yield to strange heresies and 
delusions which strike at the very foundation of true mo- 
rality. Imposture, with brazen face, stalks boldly through 
the land, and crowds of enthusiastic votaries shout around 
its standard. Under constant professions of reverence and 
veneration for the Christian system, its very corner-stone is 
being undermined by the working of a disguised material- 
ism. Tl^e assaults of infidelity are not now made openly and 
boldly, as in the days of French atheism, but it may be 
well doubted whether they are less effective because covert 
and indirect. The amazing developments in the career of 
scientific research, which are constantly startling the public 
mind, seem to have unloosed it from its moorings, to have 
destroyed all limit to its credulity, and to have impressed 



sterling's southern orator. 97 

it with the conviction that nothing is so absurd as hot to 
command credence. This entire brood of delusions, from 
Mormonism to spiritualism, are converging in their ten- 
dency to one common result — the subversion of the authority 
of the Bible, and the erection in its place of a system of 
natural religion. Against the successful spread of such fatal 
heresies, we have no other protection than in the efficiency 
of an unyielding adherence to the standard of morals adoptr 
ed by the Christian system. 



LXII. 
AMERICAN PROGRESS.— H. W. Hilliard. 

Our progress has more than transcended that of the fabled 
god of the ancients, who, beginning his morning journey in 
the east, drove his flaming chariot through the sky until he 
clipped his glowing axle in the western waves. Behind us 
have sprung up all the blessings of a high civilization ; nor 
will they disappear beneath the waves of that placid ocean 
which we have reached in our march. There they will grow 
and flourish, and their kindling lustre will spread over the 
Polynesian Islands, and gild the distant shores of Asia with 
a richer and purer splendor than they have ever enjoyed 
before. 

We are yet in the freshness of our youth ; our country, 
the latest born of the great nations, is like the youngest 
daughter of King Lear, the fairest of the sisters : 

" All ! mayst thou ever be what now thou art, 
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring." 

The horoscope which shone so resplendently over thy 
birth, O my country, announced a glorious destiny. We 
have witnessed its grand fulfilment. Berkeley's vision, re- 
vealed in poetic measures, is fully realized — 

" Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

A powerful nation, in the full vigor of her youth, unfurls 
the banner of freedom, and its mighty folds float over a con- 
tinent. Thrown out at first against a stormy sky, and in 



98 sterling's southern orator. 

defiance of tyrants, it is bathed to-day in the light of peace ; 
the eyes of all mankind are fixed upon it as the sign of 
hope. Shall it be rent asunder ? Shall its stars be quenched 
and its folds droop ? Shall it live in the memory of mankind 
only as the sign of fallen power and departed glory ? No ! 
No, let it float forever, the standard of a republic the proud- 
est, the happiest, the greatest which the world has ever be- 
held. 

Let the sun, as he rises out of the Atlantic wave, gild it 
with his morning beam ; let him throw his parting splendor 
upon it as he sinks beneath the placid waters of the Pacific, 
its gorgeous folds still streaming with undiminished lustre 
over States, free, powerful, and prosperous, associated in a 
Union as indissoluble as it is glorious. 



LXIII. 

FROM SPEECH ON OREGON.— W. H. Haywood. 

Mr. President, in coming to the conclusions I have, and 
w^hich have been expressed to the Senate without evasion 
or disguise, and in taking my stand, as I believe, alongside 
of the Executive department of the Government, I took no 
counsel of Great Britain's strength to make me recede from 
the extremest claim of my own country. Were it Mexico, 
or any still weaker and more distracted government, if I 
know my own heart, I would demand no more from it than 
I would insist upon against Great Britain, — our rights, our 
honorable rights, peaceably and in love. From neither, and 
from no other government in the world, would I take what 
was not honorable for my own to demand ; nor go to war 
with any nation for either a profitable or an unprofitable 
wrong. I must be pardoned, therefore, for giving utterance 
to the sentiment, that an accusation of this kind against our 
own Government was neither just nor politic nor patriotic. 
The rest of the world will be easy to persuade, with Ameri- 
can senators to instruct them, that our country is mean 
enough to oppress the weak, and too cowardly to assert our 
rights against the strong. Great Britain will hardly find in 
that (if she believed it) a motive for surrendering "all of 



sterling's southern orator. 99 

Oregon" without a fight, even if it should become necessary 
for her to fight us single-handed for it. 

So, before God and the Senate, I do abjure and reprobate 
the sentiment of hatred to any nation as a motive for going 
back no farther than the offered compromise. 

The venerated man whose image hangs constantly before 
us, and whose name should ever be his eulogy in an American 
Senate— GEORGE WASHINGTON— in his last words to 
the country, taught us " that the nation which indulges to- 
ward another habitual hatred is in some degree a slave ;" 
and the Declaration of American Independence has sancti- 
fied it as a political maxim of this Republic, " to hold Great 
Britain, as ice hold the rest of mankind, enemies [only] in 
war, but in peace friends." There is nothing that has 
tempted me to forget, and nothing shall drive me to violate, 
the counsel of my country's father, nor this fundamental 
maxim of free American institutions. Neither will I teach 
the people to do it. Good men could not applaud the Senate 
for it. Heaven would not excuse its practical application, 
nor fail, perhaps, to visit the consequences upon the nation 
itself. 



LXIV. 
PRIVATE CHARACTER.— A. G. Brown. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a word or two to say, in conclu- 
sion, in regard to a practice that has obtained very general- 
ly in this House, and which is justly esteemed throughout 
the country as one of bad moral and political tendency, 
not likely to produce any good, and out of which grow 
most of our personal broils and disasters. I allude, sir, to 
the practice of assailing, without reason, the personal and 
private character of political opponents, and more espe- 
cially the character of the distinguished men of the country. 
The character of our great men belongs not to this House 
or this Congress, but to the whole country. It is the 
pedestal upon which is built the fairest fabric that hu- 
man wisdom has ever devised. It is the pillars, the arches, 
in truth, the edifice itself of our republican government ; 
destroy this, and the whole fabric totters from its basis, 
and crumbles into atoms. Rome owed her greatness to her 



100 sterling's southern orator. 

senate, and Greece to her philosophers. In more modern 
times, the French Chamber of Deputies has given tone and 
energy and power to a nation's character. England's bright 
escutcheon has been rendered still more bright by the elo- 
quence and energy of her sons ; and America, young, happy, 
proud America, when she has run the full race of a nation's 
pride, when, having filled the measure of her goodness and 
greatness, baffled every difficulty, and outstripped all com- 
petition, she sits quietly down upon the summit of her pecu- 
liar fame, far above the nations of the earth, she calls the 
Bisset of the New World to record her history ; she will bid 
him write upon its fairest page the names of her Calhouns, 
her Clays, her Websters, and her Bentons ; for to these will 
she be indebted for her success, her greatness, and her 
glory. 



LXV. 

NO EDUCATION COMPLETE IF IT NEGLECTS THE MORALS, 
THE MANNERS, AND THE AFFECTIONS. 

William A. Graham. 

No system of education, however, would be complete 
which aimed merely at intellectual culture and attainments, 
and neglected the morals, the heart, and the affections. 
Fortunately for us, the culture of these is attended with no 
difficult and painful study, but is taught in the pages of re- 
vealed truth. Commencing in infancy around the knees of 
the mother, our duties are learned in the precepts of the 
decalogue ; and the heavenly charities of imperfect obliga- 
tion inculcated in the maxims and parables of the New 
Testament. All the ethics of the schools, and pure systems 
of morality among men, but confirm and illustrate these 
sublime doctrines. And the virtues which are their fruits 
give to the human character all its loveliness and real dig- 
nity. While, therefore, generous studies are assiduously 
pursued, an enlightened moral sense, and an inflexible de- 
termination to conform your conduct to its dictates, should 
be habitually cultivated! In this connection, perhaps, it is 
not below the dignity of the occasion to commend to your 
attention the culture of the u lesser morals," or a proper 
standard of manners and conversation, for the same reason 



sterling's southern orator. 101 

assigned by Aristotle for the study of music by the young 
Greeks, " that so the mind may be taught how honorably to 
pursue business,' and how creditably to eujoy leisure ; for 
such enjoyment is, after all, the end of business, and the 
boundary of active life." 



LXVI. 

IMPORTANCE OF A HOME LITERATURE.— William Eaton, Jr. 

A home literature, such as America ought hereafter to 
produce, would purify our national taste, elevate the senti- 
ments of our people, and brighten the golden links that 
bind the patriot to the land of his birth. It would exalt 
the reputation of our country abroad, and with posterity, 
.more than the most heroic achievements of the crimsoned 
field. How little should we have known of the most re- 
nowned states of antiquity but for the immortal productions 
of their orators, their historians, and their poets ! These 
imperishable memorials of ancient genius and glory are 
destined to instruct and delight the most distant generations. 
Centuries, as they have rolled away^ crumbling beneath them 
the monuments of art and the proud trophies of arms, have 
only contributed to establish and elevate the fame of the great 
writers of antiquity. The Greek and Roman classics have 
been studied and admired in every age and in every land 
where mankind have been able to appreciate the grand and 
beautiful in composition. To suppose a time in the history 
of the world when these finished models of taste shall be 
forgotten would be to anticipate the arrival of a period 
compared with which the sombre gloom of the dark ages 
would be a golden flood of light. 



LXVII. 
HON. GEORGE E. BADGER.— R. P. Dick, Esq. 

Mr. President, I feel that I can with propriety allude to 
a distinguished man who was a type of conservatism at the 
commencement of the war. I refer to the lion. George E. 



102 sterling's southern orator. 

Badger, and I have chosen him as an illustration because 
he is now gone, and " honor's voice cannot now provoke 
the silent dust, or soothe the dull, cold ear "of death." He 
fought his last battle for the Union in February, 1861, and 
gained a glorious triumph. During a long life the Union 
was the shrine of his political devotion, to which he had 
carried as offerings the warmest affections of his noble heart 
and the richest gifts of his splendid intellect. When he 
saw, as he believed, that hallowed shrine in ruins, he turned 
from it with a sad heart and joined his fortunes with his 
own people who had so long honored and loved him. He 
struggled bravely to maintain the principles of civil liberty 
in the government of his adoption ; but his hopes were 
gone, and soon the "silver cord was loosened and the 
golden bowl was broken" at the fountain of his life. I 
wish he was here to-day in his vigor and maturity, for he 
would be to us a guiding light in our thick darkness. The 
splendid orb which shone so brightly in the noontide of 
our country's glory went down amidst clouds and storms ; 
but it has risen in a fairer land, and it will shine in an end- 
less day. 



LXVIII. 
MUSIC— Virginia Herald. 



Nature, through all her depths, is full of music, varied 
in its tones and rich in its melody. There is a music in the 
stillness of the twilight hour ; in the voices of the balmy 
breeze, as it sighs amid the stirring leaves of the starlit 
grove or sleeps upon the calm bosom of the reposing 
waters ; in the thunderings of the foaming cataract ; in the 
ripplings of the mountain rill, and the majestic voice of 
the storm-stirred sea. There is music in the glad sym- 
phonies of the joyous songsters of the grove beneath, 
and the mutterings of the thunders above ; in heaven ; on 
earth ; in the outspread skies and invisible air ; in the 
solitary dell, and on the mountain's cloud-veiled top, where 
human footsteps have never left an echo ; in the deepest 
cells of the passion-stirred heart, and the inanimate depths 
of the material world ; in the dim rays of earth, and the 
beams of those celestial lights which gem the high firma- 



SOUTHERN ORATOR. 103 

merit and light the angels to their evening orisons ; in the 
tones of woman's voice on earth, and the devotions of the 
pure spirits of a better land ; in all, through all, and over 
all, and forever vibrating, the rich music of universal har- 
mony, and the deep tones of undying melody. Thou- 
sands of invisible harps are pouring their united melody 
through the depths of air and earth ; millions of archangels 
touch their heaven-strung lyres, and send celestial harmony 
through the vast halls of the temple of the living God. It 
is the air of earth ; it is the atmosphere of heaven. The 
unbounded universe is one sleepless lyre, whose chords of 
love and hope and purity and peace are fanned into a 
dreamy and mystic melody by the breath of the invisible 
God. 



LXIX. 
THE SOUL OF MAX.— Sauke*. 

I fend myself in a world where all things declare the 
perfections of the Creator. The more I consider all the 
parts, the more I admire the fitness of each to answer the 
end of Him who created them all. Among numberless 
productions perfectly correspondent to their destination, I 
find only one being whose condition does not seem to agree 
with that marvellous order which I have observed in all 
the rest. This being is my own soul. And what is this soul 
of mine? Is it fire? Is it air? Is it ethereal matter? 
Under whatever notions I consider it, I am at a loss to de- 
fine it. However, notwithstanding this obscurity, I do per- 
ceive enough of its nature to convince me of a great dis- 
proportion between the present state of my soul, and that 
end for which its Creator seems to have formed it. 

Such is my soul. But where is it lodged ? Its 2^ ace * s 
the ground of my astonishment. This soul, this subject of 
so many desires, inhabits a world of vanity and nothing- 
ness. Whether I climb the highest eminences, or pry into 
the deepest indigence, I can discover no object capable of 
filling my capacious desires. I ascend the thrones of sover- 
eigns, I descend into the beggar's dust ; I walk the palaces 
of princes, I lodge in the peasant's cabin ; I retire into the 



104 sterling's southern orator, 

closet to be wise, I avoid recollection, choose ignorance, and 
increase the crowd of idiots ; I live in solitude, I rush into 
the social multitude : but everywhere I find a mortifying 
void. In all these places there is nothing satisfactory. In 
each I am more unha]3py, through the desire of seeing new 
objects, than satisfied with the enjoyment of what I pos- 
sess. At most, I experience nothing in all these pleasures, 
which my concupiscence multiplies, but a mean of render- 
ing my condition tolerable, not a mean of making it per- 
fectly happy. 

How can I reconcile these things ? How can I make the 
Creator agree with Himself? There is one way of doing 
this, a singular but a certain way; a way that solves all 
difficulties, and covers infidelity with confusion; a way 
that teaches me what I am, whence I came, and for what 
my Creator has designed rae. Although God has placed 
me in this world, yet He does not design to limit my pros- 
pects to it ; though He has mixed me with mere animals, 
yet He does not intend to confound me with them ; though 
He has lodged my soul in a frail, perishable body, yet He % 
does not mean to involve it in the dissolution of this frame. 
Without supposing immortality, that which constitutes the 
dignity of man makes his misery. 



LXX. 

THE BIBLE OUR CHART.— W. B. Shepahd. 

The Bible is our great chart for the ocean of existence. 
It is a star over which no darkness ever comes — a light 
that shines on, though storms and desolation oversweep 
all things else — a spark struck from the divine throne to 
give day and glory to the world. Keep it ever before you. 
When you wander, it will point you to the right path ; 
when you become wounded and weary, you may feel the 
healing power of its wings ; when you doubt and hesitate, 
it will give you certainty and decision. Strike it from ex- 
istence, and the earth itself would almost totter with its 
load of crime and agony. Take from us all it has done — 
all it has originated, sustained, or completed — take from us 
its hallowed and humanizing tone ; its power to bring good 



sterling's southern orator. 105 

out of evil; to make men better and holier, and to restrain 
bad passions and desires and propensities, and you convert 
the moral, and, indeed, physical world into a body of licen- 
tiousness, and anarchy, and carnage. Guard well, then, I 
conjure you, this sacred treasure. Guard it in your hearts. 
There, at least, it will be safe. But defend it, also, from 
the assaults of men. God, it is true, needs no defence, but 
He works by instruments ; and good must war against evil. 
And trust not, I tell you, trust not the man who scoffs at 
the Bible, or openly and repeatedly disregards its funda- 
mental truths. Trust him not, though he swear by it. 



LXXI. 

PROGRESS OF THE AGE.— E. Everett. 

We need the spirit of "75 to guide us safely amid the 
dizzy activities of the times. While our own numbers are 
increasing in an unexampled ratio, Europe is pouring in 
upon us her hundreds of thousands annually, and new re- 
gions are added to our domain, which we are obliged to 
count by degrees of latitude and longitude. In the mean 
time, the most wonderful discoveries of art and the most 
mysterious powers of nature combine to give an almost fear- 
ful increase to the intensity of our existence. Machines of 
unexampled complication and ingenuity have been applied 
to the whole range of human industry ; we rush across the 
land and the sea by steam ; we correspond by magnetism ; 
we paint by the solar ray ; we count the beats of the elec- 
tric clock at the distance of a thouand miles ; we annihieate 
time and distance ; and, amidst all the new agencies of com- 
munication and action, the omnipotent Press — the great en- 
gine of modern progress, not superseded or impaired, but 
gathering new power from all the arts — is daily clothing 
itself with louder thunders. While we contemplate with 
admiration — almost with awe — the mighty influences which 
surround us, and which demand our cooperation and our 
guidance, let our hearts overflow with gratitude to the pa- 
triots who have handed down to us this great inheritance. 
Let us strive to furnish ourselves, from the storehouse of 
their example, with the principles and virtues which will 



106 sterling's southern orator. 

strengthen us for the performance of an honored part on 
this illustrious stage. Let pure patriotism add its bond to 
the bars of iron which are binding the continent together ; 
and, as intelligence shoots with the electric spark from ocean 
to ocean, let public spirit and love of country catch from 
heart to heart. 



LXXII. 

TRIUMPHS OP CHRISTIANITY.— Rev. H. B. Bascom. 

See Christianity springing up, and gaining upon the no- 
tice of the world, in Jerusalem, Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, 
and Rome. Its origin at first scarcely known, the country 
of that origin proverbially despised, denouncing the whole 
calendar and rabble of pagan gods in the very centres and 
capitals of the most idolatrous nations ; proscribing pleasure 
in the midst of w r ealth, pomp, and luxury ; urging the care 
and interests of the soul among those who regarded its im- 
mortality as a fable ; inculcating the fear and worship of God 
where His very existence was unknown or denied ; original, 
austere, and exacting in the reprobation of sin ; explicit and 
uncompromising in demanding purity of heart and self- 
denial of life ; and this amid unbounded licentiousness and 
crime, — what were its chances, upon any hypothesis involv- 
ing only human agency, to become the religion of the civil- 
ized world ? 

Who could have supposed, under such circumstances of 
discouragement, that, notwithstanding the paucity of her 
means and the poverty of her friends, the resistance of civil- 
ization and the hostility of barbarism, with persecution's 
ban-dogs, loud and lean, everywhere howling over the 
wreck of her first altars and early homes, she would, in less 
than three centuries, see the land of the pyramids and the 
realm of the Caesars bow, and, subverting the giant might 
of the imperial Palatine, give her banner to the breeze upon 
the ruins of the capital of nations ? 

And this general inference is confirmed further by the 
fact that Christianity, as a system, was as perfect, as every 
way complete, at first as it is now. It was not gradually 
produced. It is not, in any sense, a growth. It exhibited 



sterling's southern orator. 107 

all its perfections, its absolute entireness, at once, without 
any thing like progressive elaboration. No formative, per- 
fecting process was appealed to. Original, singular, and 
apart, it met with no countenance or support from the age 
in which it appeared. It superseded existing systems by 
reversing the decisions of antiquity, and stood alone in un- 
compounded oneness and wholeness, in the isolated, unbor- 
rowed grandeur of its own nature and pretensions. 



LXXIII. 
THE SENTINELS OF LIBERTY.— D. Webster. 

When the members of this House shall lose the freedom 
of speech and debate ; when they shall surrender the right 
of publicly and freely canvassing all important measures of 
the Executive ; when they shall not be allowed to maintain 
their own authority and their own privileges by vote, 
declaration, or resolution, they will then be no longer free 
representatives of a free people, but slaves themselves, and 
fit instruments to make slaves of others. 

Sir, if the people have a right to discuss the official con- 
duct of the Executive, so have their representatives. We 
have been taught to regard a representative of the people 
as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty. Is he to be 
blind, though visible danger approaches ? Is he to be deaf, 
though sounds of peril fill the air ? Is he to be dumb, while 
a thousand duties impel him to raise the cry of alarm ? Is 
he not, rather, to catch the lowest whisper which breathes 
intention or purpose of encroachment on the public liberties, 
and to give his voice breath and utterance at the first 
appearance of danger ? Is not his eye to traverse the whole 
horizon, with the keen and eager vision of an unhooded 
hawk, detecting, through all disguises, every enemy advanc- 
ing, in any form, toward the citadel which he guards ? 

Sir, this watchfulness for public liberty, this duty of 
foreseeing danger and proclaiming it, this promptitude and 
boldness in resisting attacks on the Constitution from any 
quarter, this defence of established landmarks, this fearless 
resistance of whatever would transcend or remove them, 
all belong to the representative character, are interwoven 



108 sterling's southern orator. 

with its very nature, and of which it cannot be deprived, 
without converting an active, intelligent, faithful agent of 
the people into an unresisting and passive instrument of 
power. A representative body which gives up these rights 
and duties gives itself up. It is a representative body no 
longer. It has broken the tie between itself and its con- 
stituents, and henceforth is fit only to be regarded as an 
inert, self-sacrificed mass, from which all appropriate prin- 
ciple of vitality has departed forever. 



LXXIV. 

EXHORTATION TO YOUNG MEN.— William Eaton. 

In every situation of human life, and in every relation of 
society, you should discharge all your duties with scrupulous 
fidelity. Endeavor to form a character which shall com- 
mand universal respect, and present to the shafts of calumny 
an impenetrable shield. Let high honor, inflexible integrity, 
and ingenuous frankness distinguish your conduct at all 
times. Abstain from every act as to the moral propriety of 
which the least difference of opinion can be fairly entertained 
among men of understanding and worth. The honor of a 
gentleman, like a soldier's courage, should be very far be- 
yond suspicion. Let your morals be pure and unexception- 
able. Shun not only odious and disreputable vices, but 
also those Avhich may be tolerated by the public sentiment 
of the neighborhood in which you may reside, and which 
are apt to present more dangerous allurements to' the 
young. Practise the virtues of temperance, moderation, 
and strict self-control. Amiability of disposition and ur- 
banity in your social intercourse will be equally essential to 
your usefulness in society and your own happiness. Be 
careful in the selection of your intimate associates, and 
faithful to your friends, particularly in their adversity. 
Cultivate feelings of generous benevolence toward your 
fellow-man of every color and every condition. Sad would 
be human existence if the sorrows of afflicted humanity 
should find no cheering sympathy in the breasts of the 
intelligent, the educated, and the refined. Let all of the 
influence which you may be able to exercise in society be 



sterling's southern orator. 109 

exerted for purposes which are dear to the patriot, the 
philanthropist, and the Christian. 

LXXV. 

THE DUTIES OF AMERICAN STATESMEN.— John Bell. 

To calm the rising elements of discontent, to assuage 
the feverish symptoms of the body politic, is the business, 
of every American statesman. An American statesman ! 
Who and what are the duties and attributes of an American 
statesman at this day ? They are, or they ought, to account 
themselves the high-priests of liberty, administering her 
rites for the benefit of her disciples in every country ; for 
this favorite people first, and then for all the nations. Such 
is the high and noble calling of an American statesman. 
What is the first great care of an American statesman ? 
To preserve our free institutions. I will not go into an 
argument to show that the only effective mode of discharg- 
ing this great trust is to preserve and cherish the Union. 
That is an axiom in American politics, I trust, too firmly 
established to be overthrown by the theories of any new 
professors in the science, however distinguished for genius 
and talents. What is the next great duty of American 
statesmen ? So to administer their offices as to secure com- 
fort and happiness to the greatest number of the citizens of 
this free country. These are the whole law and the prophets 
for the guidance of our statesmen. These are the sum of 
all the commandments in the book of our political faith. 



LXXVI. 

HON. ANDREW P. BUTLER, OP S. C— J. Y. Mason. 

Born, nurtured, and reared in one the most gallant Stales 
of the " Old Thirteen," he loved and venerated her fame 
with instincts that were truly filial ; and as a child would 
defend a parent from insult or wrong, you have marked hia 
form dilate, and his eye kindle and Hash defiance, Whenever 



110 sterling's southern orator. 

called to vindicate the fame or honor of his State. His de- 
votion and his first duty were to South-Carolina ; yet, on 
the broader theatre of a common country embracing all the 
States, his views were liberal, catholic, and fair ; giving to 
each section its just and full share in whatever benefits or 
advantages flowed from a common government. There his 
public service was directed with a single eye to the public 
good. 

I have thus attempted, Mr. President, feebly to portray 
the senator and the statesman as he stood confessed before 
the country. But it was in the social and domestic circle, 
in paths not opened to the common view, that the richest 
gifts of nature to man, the latent virtues of the heart, shone 
with a lustre all their own. There was not an impulse there 
that was not generous, genial, and confiding. He sympa- 
thized with his race, and his whole race. If it was his for- 
tune at some time " debellare saperhos" that more grateful 
emotion was ever his, " parcere victis" 

But I should not detain you longer with this poor memo- 
rial of the gallant dead. He sleeps beneath the soil of his 
own loved Carolina, amidst those who loved and honored 
him in life, and who received his last sigh in death. 



LXXVII. 

THE DANGERS FROM POLITICAL AGITATIONS. 

Axbeiit G. Brown. 

We have a country a common country, a country clear 
to him and to me ; to you, sir; to one and to all of us. That 
country is in peril. The hearts of stout men begin to quail. 
Thousands and hundreds of thousands of our people believe 
that the Union is even now rocking beneath our feet. The 
senator has it in his power to put a stop to all this agita- 
tion. If he will but say to the angry waves, "Peace, be 
still," calmness will settle on the great deep of public senti- 
ment. Whether he thinks so or not, he is the very life and 
soul of this agitation. If he stood now where he stood at 
the passage of this bill, with his Democratic friends, sup- 
porting the strong arm of a President who dares to do his 
duty in defiance of all danger, there would not have been a 



sterling's southern orator. Ill 

ripple on the surface, or, if there had been, it would ha\e 
subsided and died away in the great ocean of oblivion where 
other ripples have gone, and we should almost without an 
effort introduce Kansas into the Union. Sir, the senator 
from Illinois gives life, he gives vitality, he gives energy, he 
lends the aid of his mighty genius and his powerful will to 
the opposition on this question. If ruin come upon the 
country, he, more than any other and all other men, will be 
to blame for it. If freedom shall be lost — if the Union shall 
fail — if the rights of man shall perish on earth — if desolation 
shall spread her mantle over this our glorious country — let 
not the senator ask who is the author of all this, lest ex- 
piring Liberty, with a death-rattle in her throat, shall an- 
swer to him as Nathan answered David, "Thou art the 



LXXVIII. 
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY.— M. R. H. Garnett. 

Tes, sir, property is not the creature of legislation ; but it 
is coeval with government, with society, with man himself. 
It springs from those instincts and capacities with which 
man is endowed by his Creator, and which find their inevi- 
table development in his social institutions — the power to 
love, which becomes real in the family and its relations. 
Property, in all its varieties and incidents, arises from the 
power and the wish to subdue the material world, to endow 
matter with the forms of mind, to contract with his fellow ; 
from the capacity and instinct of the superior races to com- 
mand, and of the inferior to obey, and thus mutually to aid 
each other in fulfilling the work of God in the universe. 
Upon these instincts, divinely implanted in the human 
breast, spring the relations of the family and the rights of 
property — the primordial elements of man's social existence 
— and to protect and preserve them is the primary object of 
government, which divine Providence instituted when man 
was created a political as well as a social being. 

Therefore, it is true that the rights of property exist in- 
dependently of,«and above, constitutional sanction. 



112 sterling's southern orator. 

LXXIX. 

THE LAW OF GOD.—L. M. Keitt. 

The law of God, Mr. Chairman, is an equation, full and 
complete, made up of the modern dispensation and the old 
covenant. They are both results of divine counsels and ex- 
ponents of divine truth. You cannot touch any of its ele- 
ments, you cannot add to or subtract from either of the 
terms, without vitiating the result. The curse is upon those 
who would do so. Did I require any proof of the subsist- 
ence of that law and of the verity of the Book in which it is 
written, I would find it in the character of the awfully terri- 
ble language in which the penalties of infraction are written 
out in every variety of form and for every vicissitude of 
time. It is not the growth of human thought, nor yet the 
expression of human speech. It has the unmistakable 
stamp of divine conception and divine utterance. Save 
where it has pleased the Maker to modify it, it stands as 
the expression of His unchanged will. It rings, as it has 
rung through the lapse of ages. It speaks, as -it has spoken 
across the chasms of revolutions, above the tramp of genera- 
tions steadily treading on their pilgrimage to the grave ; it 
speaks, even now, with the most appalling denunciations 
which it may be given to the mind of man to conceive. It 
is useless for our politico-religious theologians to shriek out, 
" Old dispensation and old law ; it had its time, and it has 
passed away for a better and a higher law." What, sir, 
higher and better law coming from God? This is impious, 
sir, beyond utterance. This is lending to unerring wisdom 
the failings and imperfections of the human mind* Man 
may grope away at higher and better laws ; but God in- 
tuitively and ever wills the highest and the best. 



LXXX. 

THE TEMPERANCE REFORM.— John B. Gough. 

Of those who began the temperance reform, some are 
living to-day ; and I should like to stand now and see the 
mighty enterprise as it rises before them.. They worked 



sterling's southern orator. 113 

hard ; they lifted the first turf, prepared the bed in which 
to lay the corner-stone; they laid it amid persecution and 
storm ; they worked under the surface, and men almost for- 
got that there were busy hands laying the solid foundation 
far down beneath. By and by they got the foundation above 
the surface, and then commenced another storm of persecu- 
tion. Now we see the superstructure, pillar after pillar, 
tower after tower, column after column, with the capitals 
emblazoned: "Love, truth, sympathy, and good-will to all 
men." Old men gaze upon it as it grows up before them, 
They will not live to see it completed, but they see in faith 
the crowning copestone set upon it. Meek-eyed women 
weep as it grows in beauty ; children strew the pathway of 
the workmen with flowers. 

We do 'not see its beauty yet; we do not see the magnifi- 
cence of the superstructure yet, because it is in course of 
erection. Scaffolding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending 
and descending, mar the beauty of the building ; but, by 
and by, when the hosts who have labored shall come up 
over a thousand battle-fields, waving with bright grain, 
never again to be crushed in the distillery ; through vine- 
yards, under trellised vines with grapes hanging in all their 
purple glory, never again to be pressed into that which can 
debase and degrade mankind ; when they shall come through 
orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden, pulpy 
fruit, never to be turned into that which can injure and 
debase; when they shall come up to the last distillery, 
and destroy it, to the last stream of liquid death, and dry it 
up ; to the last weeping wife, and wipe her tears gently 
away; to the last little child, and lift him up to stand 
where God meant that mankind should stand ; to the last 
drunkard, and nerve him to burst the burning fetters, and 
make a glorious^ accompaniment to the song of freedom by 
the clanking of his broken chains, — then, ah ! then will the 
copestone be set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a 
crash, and the building will stand in its wondrous beauty 
before an astonished world. 



114: sterling's southern orator. 



OUR HONORED DEAD.— R. P. Dick, Esq. 

Mr. President, many radical men at the North insist that 
the Southern people are not yet sufficiently humiliated, as 
they talk too much about the skill of rebel generals and the 
valor of rebel soldiers. This feeling does not prevail with 
those gallant men who composed the Union army. They 
know the valor of Southern soldiers, they, and rightly, think 
that it adds to the glory of their triumph, and, like brave 
and chivalrous men, they -are willing to extend the utmost 
generosity to their prostrate rivals. 

This is the true spirit of chivalry, and it is not expected 
that the Southern people will give up every feeling that en- 
nobles and dignifies man. They are not required by any 
species of loyalty to surrender their holy affections and 
sacred memories. As they sit in sorrow and poverty beside 
their desolate hearth-stones, they must and will have 
nature's privilege of weeping for their noble dead. The 
South can never yield the pride she feels in the chivalrous 
gallantry of her children — and she will honor the memory 
of the dead, and regard the places where they sleep as holy 
ground. She may raise no proud mausoleum to perpetuate 
the fame of her heroes ; but her matrons and her maidens 
will gather the sweetest and freshest flowers of spring to 
decorate the shrines of their sorrow and affection, and the 
humble graves of the Southern dead will ever be places 
sacred to memory and tears. If the South were to act 
otherwise, she would be untrue to the noblest feelings of 
the human heart, and she would deserve no name and place 
in history. The noble and generous people of the North 
will never complain that the South honors too much the 
memory of Stonewall Jackson, for he was a noble Christian 
Jiero. His fame is world wide, and he is ranked with the 
great and good of every land, and his immortal name is as- 
sociated with the distinguished captains of ancient and 
modern times. He is the Chevalier Bayard of the nine- 
teenth century ; for he fell upon a field of victory, and was 
u without fear and without reproach." 



sterling's southern orator. 115 

LXXXII. 
THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.— A. Pike. 

This project, sir, may be chimerical. It may be chime- 
rical to attempt to carry on any great work in the South ; 
but, if so, it is the fault of the Southern States and the 
Southern people. It is time that we should look about us, 
and see in what relation we stand to the North. From the 
rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the children 
born in the South to the shroud that covers the cold form 
of the dead, every thing comes to us from the North. We 
rise from between sheets made in Northern looms, and pil- 
lows of Northern feathers ; we wash in basins made in the 
North ; we dry our beards on Northern towels, and dress 
ourselves in garments woven in Northern looms ; we eat 
from Northern plates and dishes ; our rooms are swept 
with Northern brooms ; our gardens are dug with Northern 
spades, and our bread kneaded in trays or dishes of North- 
ern wood ; nay, the very wood which feeds our fires is cut 
with Northern axes, helved with hickory brought from Con- 
necticut and New- York. 

And so we go on from the beginning to the end. We 
hardly put any thing on ourselves or in ourselves that does 
not come from the North. It is high time these things 
were changed. It is high time that our planters should be 
taught to know that no country which manufactures noth- 
ing can still prosper. 

Are we, sir, to rely on legislation to teach the South to 
be independent and self-reliant ? Have Ave not the courage, 
manhood, and resolution to engage vigorously in this great 
work ? This is the question for us to consider. 

And, sir, shall we be frightened Try the sneers of the ig- 
norant and inconsiderate ? If you are not willing to toil 
for years and to go down to the grave unhonored, you arc 
not fit to be a laborer in the common weal. If you are 
willing to struggle against indifference, apathy, and ingrati- 
tude ; if you are willing to labor for the benefit of men 
who never bestow a thought upon you ; if you are willing 
to labor for what is right without the hope of reward, then 
you are a fit laborer in the cause of your common country. 
Your country wants soldiers who will stand exposed to 



116 sterling's southern orator. 

the artillery through a long fight and never flinch ; soldiers 
who love the cause because it is just, whether they are suc- 
cessful or not. Let us fight on ! 



LXXXIII. 
AMERICAN FREEDOM.— -T. F. Meaghek. 

Why should I not cling, with a proud love and courage, 
to this republic, her interests, her laws and institutions ? 
There are many reasons for so doing. It is not merely that 
I am grateful for the protection and the citizenship insured 
to me ; it is not merely that I regard this form of govern- 
ment, and this condition of society, as the finest and most 
truthful expression of the national will, necessities, intellect, 
and ambition, which anywhere on this earth exists ; but 
that I recognize in the stability of the republic a source of 
strength to other nations, and in her success an incentive 
with them to a courageous emulation. 

While this Republic stands — augments her fortune — pro- 
ceeds upon her high 'career — there is hope for the most 
abject, decrepit, and disabled of mankind. As the thoughts 
of the great poet — whether in words or in the marble of 
the great artist — sometimes waken the most drowsy souls 
into rapturous activity, so shall the example, the written, 
the spoken, and the living word of this grand nation rouse 
the spirit of those who now lie dumb and torpid in the 
shadow of the thrones that are moored in the full tide of 
massacre, and in which, as if in the hold of the pirate ship, 
the plundered liberties of the people, bound and bleeding, 
are battered down. 

Austria — the w T hole Germanic family — tongue-tied ; the 
Rhine stagnant in her bed ; Poland, still the Niobe of na- 
tions, and her estate and her children cut up and parcelled 
out among the robbers ; Hungary, with the knife at her 
proud and beauteous neck ; Italy, locked within her sculp- 
tured sepulchre, and a profane soldiery keeping watch upon 
it ; France, grimacing in a masquerade, the glare of which 
blinds men to the crimes of which that country is the sense- 
less and the reckless carnival; Ireland, her people decaying 
and disappearing faster than even the ruins which a ruthless 



sterling's southern orator. 117 

civilization has yet left standing on the soil ; where, where 
can the eye that scans the history of this day turn with joy, 
without grief, without vengeance, without despair, unless 
it be to this great commonwealth, the progress, the im- 
mensity of which are mapped out in those mighty waters 
of the West from which I came but yesterday ? 

Here, here — glory be to Him on high ! — here Freedom 
stands upon a pedestal higher than the Alps — her spear is 
lifted to the sun — the rays that flash from it shall descend 
— descend through the blackest cloud and storm — descend 
and penetrate the deepest dungeon, and there wake up the 
oldest prisoner — wake him up not idly to gaze upon the 
hills and his home far off, but wake him up to wrench the 
bars that hem him in, and with them slay the sentinel — 
though he wear a crown, and be impiously hailed the an- 
ointed of the Lord. 



lxxxiv. 
INDUSTRY.— W. Lumpkin. 



To live in such a world and age as this brings with it im- 
mense obligations — a world redeemed with the blood of 
the Son of God ; an age which prpphets and patriarchs de- 
sired to see, but died without the sight ; a spot of time most 
interesting in the eye of Heaven, and which, beyond any 
past period, has witnessed the most splendid achievements 
of mind over matter. You stand, as it were, under an open- 
ing heaven, by the tomb of a world rising from the slumber 
of ages. Can any be stupid, be half awake, in such a day ? 
Stand erect, I entreat you. Let every nerve, mental and 
bodily, be strung to action. Give your days and nights to 
labor and study. 

Soon you will be ranked among the legislators, magis- 
trates, or interpreters of the laws or religion of your coun- 
try. With what diligence, in this spring-season of life, 
should you prepare yourselves for the faithful discharge of 
offices so arduous and important! Shall indolence, or the 
degrading love of ease and pleasure, like a blighting mil- 
dew, blast your improvement in the bud, destroy the fond 
hopes of parents and friends, and the speculations of your 



118 sterling's southern orator. 

country ? Rest assured that, without patient industry, the 
greatest talents and advantages will be fruitless. Look to 
the Platos and Ciceros of antiquity, the Boyles, Newtons, 
and Lockes of modern times ; and they all, with one accord, 
will tell you that industry was the secret by which they 
were enabled to perform such wonders. 



LXXXV. 

EULOGY ON WASHINGTON.— J. M. Mason. 

It must ever be difficult to compare the merits of Wash- 
ington's characters, because he always appeared greatest in 
that which he last sustained. Yet, if there is a preference, 
it must be assigned to the lieutenant-general of the armies 
of America. Not because the duties of that station were 
more arduous than those which he had often performed, but 
because it more fully displayed his magnanimity. While oth- 
ers become great by elevation, Washington becomes greater 
by condescension. Matchless patriot ! to stoop, on public mo- 
tives, to an inferior appointment, after possessing and digni- 
fying the highest offices ! Thrice favored country which boasts 
of such a citizen ! We gaze^vith astonishment ; we exult that 
we are Americans. We augur every thing great, and good, 
and happy. But whence this sudden horror ? What means 
that cry of agony? Oh, 'tis the shriek of America! The 
fairy vision is fled ; Washington is — no more ! 

" How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished ! " 

Daughters of America, who have prepared the festal bower 
and the laurel wreath, plant now the cypress grove, and 
water it with tears. 



sterling's southern orator. 119 

LXXXVI. 
THE MURDERER'S SECRET.— D. Webster. 

True it is, generally speaking, that " murder will out." 
True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so 
govern things, that those who break the great law of 
heaven, by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoid- 
ing discovery ; especially in a case exciting so much atten- 
tion as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later. 
A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every 
thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and 
place ; a thousand ears catch every whisper ; a thousand 
excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all 
their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance 
into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot 
keep its own secret. 

It is false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse 
of conscience to be true to itself; it labors under its guilty 
possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human 
heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant ; 
it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not 
acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, 
and it asks no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven 
or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon 
comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which 
we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it 
will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, 
and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world 
sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its 
workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has be- 
come his master. It betrays his discretion; it breaks down 
his courage; it conquers his prudence. When suspicions 
from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of cir- 
cumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles, witli 
still greater violence, to burst forth. It must be confessed ; 
it will be confessed ; there is no refuge from confession but 
suicide ; and suicide is confession. 



120 sterling's southern orator. 

LXXXVII. 
SABBATH-SCHOOLS.— Milford Bard. 

Mind constitutes the majesty of man — virtue his true 
nobility. The tide of improvement, which is now flowing 
like another Niagara through the land, is destined to roll 
on downward to the latest posterity ; and it will bear to 
them, on its bosom, our virtues, our vices, our glory, or our 
shame, or whatever else we may transmit as an inheritance. 
It then, in a great measure, depends upon the present 
whether the moth of immorality and the vampire of luxu- 
ry shall prove the overthrow of the republic ; or knowl- 
edge and virtue, like pillars, shall support her against the 
whirlwind of war, ambition, corruption, and the remorseless 
tooth of time. Let no frown fall upon the hopes of the 
philanthropist in the cause of the Sunday-school. If its 
power individually is humble, so is the labor of the silk- 
worm ; but the united product is immense, it becomes the 
wealth of a whole empire. We despise the single insect 
crushed wantonly in our path ; but, united, they have 
depopulated cities, destroyed fertile fields, and struck 
terror to nations, becoming more formidable than Caesar or 
Scipio, than Hannibal or Alexander. The united effort 
of Sunday-schools may carry intelligence and virtue to 
millions of minds ; nor does the accumulation of influence 
cease with their labors, for millions yet unborn may reap 
the tenfold harvest. Active education is ever on the in- 
crease; like money, its interest becomes compound, dou- 
bles, and in the course of years becomes a vast national 
treasury. Give your children fortunes without education, 
and at least half the number will go down to the tomb of 
oblivion, perhaps to ruin. Give them education, and they 
will accumulate fortunes ; they will be a fortune themselves, 
to their country. It is an inheritance worth more than 
gold, for it buys true honor ; they can neither spend nor 
lose it ; and through life it proves a friend — in death, a deli- 
cious consolation. Give your children education, and no 
tyrant will triumph over your liberties. Give your chil- 
dren education, and the silver-shod horse of the despot will 
never trample on the ruins of the fabric of your freedom. 



sterling's southern orator. 121 

lxxxviii. 

THE UNION.— A. P. Butler. 

Those who have introduced here the doctrines which we 
are called upon to question have no right to measure the 
extent of my opposition. What that measure will be I do 
not know. I am willing to accede to any peaceful consti- 
tutional measure which will tend to preserve the Union 
itself; these means may be too long disregarded ; there is 
a limit. I am astonished when I hear the language some- 
times used by the representatives from the " Old Thirteen ; " 
from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New-York, 
and New- Jersey, making war upon their brethren of the 
Southern sections of the Union, which seems to me but the 
policy that results in their own suicide. They give way to 
these wild, fanatical suggestions of policy in disregard of 
those admonitions which should address themselves to them 
from their past history, as well as in view of their future 
destiny. They are waging a war against their interest 
under the influence of feelings which were inculcated by 
their ancestors, and sowing the seeds of disunion. 

I have said what I designed to say at this time ; but with 
it I would, if I dared, make a suggestion to the adminis- 
tration, which has now, in a measure, the control of the 
destinies of this country ; and it would be that they should 
not experiment upon the disaffection which exists in one por- 
tion of this Union. I know, sir, it is deeper, far deeper, than 
has ever been exhibited on this floor. I fear it has been too 
much disguised. And it is not confined to South-Carolina, as 
some seem to consider. Some would be glad to see her 
isolated from others, and thereby made an easier victim. 
The people of other Southern States are speaking out, and, 
if events are not arrested, there will be but one voice, and 
that voice will come from the mass of the people. The 
press and politicians cannot much longer delude them. 
What State may be the first to be involved in measures 
of resistance I know not. South-Carolina has sometimes 
cried out as a sentinel. But there are others having 
greater interests at stake, and which will be put ultimately 
in great danger. They will look tfptheir security and in- 
terests, and all will move as one man. It is for those who 



122 sterling's southern orator. 

have the destinies of this nation in their hands to say how 
far they will respect the feelings of the South. 



LXXXIX. 
FALSE COURAGE.— Channing. 



Courage, considered in itself, or without reference to its 
origin and motives, and regarded in its common manifesta- 
tions, is not virtue, is not moral excellence ; and the dis- 
position to exalt it above the spirit of Christianity is one 
of the most ruinous, delusions which have been transmitted 
to us from barbarous times. In most men courage has its 
origin in a happy organization of the body. It belongs to 
the nerves rather than to the character. In some it is an 
instinct bordering on rashness. In one man it springs from 
strong passions obscuring the idea of danger ; in another, 
from the want of imagination, or from the capacity of 
bringing future evils near. The courage of the uneducated 
may often be traced to stupidity, to the absence of thought 
and sensibility. Many are courageous from the dread of 
the infamy absurdly attached to cowardice. One terror 
expels another. A bullet is less formidable than a sneer. 
To show the moral worthlessness of mere courage, of con- 
tempt of bodily suffering and pain, one consideration is suffi- 
cient. The most abandoned have possessed it in perfection. 
The villain often hardens into the thorough hero, if courage 
and heroism be one. The more complete his success in 
searing conscience and defying God, the more dauntless his 
daring. Long-continued vice and exposure naturally gen- 
erate contempt of life and a reckless encounter of peril. 
Courage, considered in itself, or without reference to its 
causes, is no virtue, and deserves no esteem. It is found in 
the best and the worst, and is to be judged according to the 
qualities from which it springs and with which it is con- 
joined. 



sterling's southern orator. 123 

xc. 

TRUE COURAGE.— Chaining. 

There is a virtuous, glorious courage ; but it happens to 
be found least in those who are most admired for bravery. 
It is the courage of principle, which dares to do right in the 
face of scorn, which puts to hazard reputation, rank, the 
prospects of advancement, the sympathy of friends, the 
admiration of the world, rather than violate a conviction 
of duty. It is the courage of benevolence and piety, which 
counts not life dear in withstanding error, superstition, 
vice, oppression, injustice, and the mightiest foes of human 
improvement and happiness. It is moral energy, that force 
of w r ill in adopting duty, over which menace and suffering 
have no power. It is the courage of a soul which rever- 
ences itself too much to be greatly moved about what be- 
falls the body ; which thirsts so intensely for a pure inward 
life, that it can yield up the animal life without fear ; in 
which the idea of moral, spiritual, celestial good has been 
unfolded so brightly as to obscure all worldly interests ; 
which aspires after immortality, and therefore heeds little 
the pains or pleasures of a day ; which has so concentred 
its whole power and life in the love of godlike virtue, that 
it even finds a joy in the perils and sufferings by which its 
loyalty to God and virtue may be approved. This courage 
may be called the perfection of humanity, for it is the ex- 
ercise, result, and expression of the highest attributes of 
our nature. 



XCL 

WEALTH.— E. A. Nisbet. 



'Who does not honor the princely dispenser of good gifts, 
and the royal reliever of many wants ? It is his vocation 
to bless, and his privilege to receive benedictions. Under 
his auspices the artist fights his way to distinction, the poet 
scales the summit of Parnassus, the scholar vanquishes the 
resistance of science, and the church builds her altars and 
dedicates her temples. There is another class of Mam- 



124 sterling's southern orator. 

mon's worshippers, whose desires for gold are more inordi- 
nate than Caesar's for dominion, and less scrupulous than 
Napoleon's for empire. To amass it, all energies are strain- 
ed, all appetites conquered, all principle banished, and all 
honesty discarded. 

And it is not for its enjoyments, its independence, or its 
power ; it is simply to be conscious of coin, and cognizant 
of dollars ; to reign upon 'Change and to be pointed at 
upon the Rialto ; to preside over an estate, like the spirit 
of opulence over the caverns of Potosi, or the genius of 
avarice over the pits of Golconda. He whose only ambition it 
is to be rich, even for the innocent pleasures money can 
give, is greeted with but little respect, although he may in- 
duce no censure. Whilst he who acquires gain in order to 
dispense its blessings to the poor, or to furnish the means 
of full, untrammelled action to enlarged intelligence and 
expansive benevolence, is loved by all and condemned by 
none. 

He is the steward of God's mercies, and the agent of his 
divine beneficence. But he from whom pity cannot wring 
a pittance, or famine a crumb, or friendship a token, is of 
all men the most supremely contemptible, and of all small 
things the most diminutively little. 



XCII. 

MAJESTY OF INTELLECT.— Rev. G. S. Weaver. 

From time immemorial intellectual endowments have 
been crowned with bays of honor. In all times and nations 
intellect has been the idol-god of the human race. Men 
have worshipped at its shrine with an Eastern idolatry. Men 
of great intellect have been regarded as demigods. The mul- 
titude have looked upon them with awe-struck wonder. An 
impression has been felt, as of the presence of a grand and 
solemn agent of spiritual majesty and power. With cheer- 
ful and reverent hands the world has crowned intellect with 
its richest honors. Its pathway has been strewn with flow- 
ers ; its brow has worn the loftiest plume ; it has sat upon 
the proudest throne ; it has held the mightiest sceptre of 
power. This general, universal adoration of intellect is 



sterling's southern orator. 125 

proof at once both of its transcendent worth^ and power. 
But evidences mightier than these are standing thick as 
stars in night's diadem, all through the universe, proclaim- 
ing the worth and power of that which produces thought, 
and adapts ends to means. 

By intellect divine came the earth, rolling her vast cir- 
cuit among the numberless hosts of the family of worlds, 
with all its rich and gorgeous furniture. By intellect 
divine came the glory-flashing magnificence of heaven ; its 
blazing suns lit beyond suns that roam and. shine through 
the measureless spaces of immensity. By intellect human 
came the secondary creations that mark with the chiselled 
lines of thought and skill the career of man — the cultivated 
fields, the vine-clad hills, tha mill-strewn vales, the love-lit 
homes, the village-decked plains, the city-girt continents, 
the steamer-covered streams, the wire- woven and iron-bound 
lands, and sail-wreathed oceans. By intellect came all the 
stirring, sublime, mystery-woven realities of the universe. 
Then is it not worthy of our attention ? And though but 
a feeble spark be ours, should it not be cultivated? 



XCIII. 
SHALL OUR LAURELS WITHER?— A. P. Harcoubt. 

From France and England America can expect nothing. 
Should our internal commotions and sectional animosities 
once carry our nation to the verge of disunion and certain 
destruction, we can look for no conciliatory interference on 
the part of these crafty powers. TVTe are now already dis- 
united in sentiment ; and the harmony and brotherly feel- 
ing, that were wont to prevail, no longer manifest them- 
selves, as of yore, in a love of our great and flourishing Re- 
public — in a determination to stand by the Union and our 
star-lit banner, when invaded and attacked by traitors from 
within and foes from without ; our hearts have grown cold, 
a cloud is on our brow, and we are not prepared for the com- 
ing storm. 

Already has the war whoop been raised by the crowned 
heads of Europe, and the cry has gone forth, that the great 
luminary of the Western World is on the wane ; that her 



126 sterling's southern orator. 

light in the political heavens is beginning to grow dim ; that 
soon she will sink into eternal gloom, never, never to rise again. 
Shall it be ? Shall the eagle be stopped in his lofty flight ? 
Proud bird ! shall they tear from thee thy plumage ? Shall 
they pluck from thee that quill that is to record on the scroll 
of time great America's fall? Shall our laurels wither? 
Forbid it, Almighty God ! 

Forbid that the flag of a Warren, the martyr — of a Wash- 
ington, the hero, the sage, the patriot — that the flag which 
first floated to the breeze from the heights of Bunker's Hill, 
and which afterward streamed aloft from over Independ- 
ence Hall, and which now waves over twenty millions of 
people, the lights of the habitable globe — forbid that it 
should ever be lowered to a foreign foe ; but if it must be 
lowered, if it must be struck, great God forbid that it should 
be by a parricidal hand ; rather let it be by some Philip — 
ay, a Xerxes with his million of men ; but ere then it shall 
fall, Americans! — yes, you Kentuckians! — let us gather 
around the venerable staff, and as each raises his right hand 
to heaven, and clasps the flowing folds with his left, let us 
swear our laurels shall never wither. 



xcrv. 

MAN'S DESTINY.— G. D. Prentice. 

It cannot be that earth is man's only abiding-place. It 
cannot be that our life is a bubble cast upon the ocean 
of eternity, to float a moment upon its waves, and sink into 
nothingness. Else why is it the high and glorious aspira- 
tions, which leap like angels from the temple of our hearts, 
are forever wandering unsatisfied ? Why is it that the rain- 
bow and cloud come over us with a beauty that is not of 
earth, and then pass off to leave us to muse on their loveli- 
ness ? Why is it that the stars, which " hold their festival 
around the midnight throne," are set above the grasp of 
limited faculties, forever mocking us with their unapproach- 
able glory ? And finally, why is it that bright forms of hu- 
man beauty are presented to our view and taken from us : 
leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back 
in Alpine torrents upon our heart ? We are born for a 



sterling's southern orator. 127 

• 

higher destiny than that of earth. There is a realm where 
the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread out 
beforeus like the islands that slumber on the ocean, and 
where the beautiful beings which pass before us like sha- 
dows will stay forever in our presence. 



xcv. 

THE LITTLE ORATOR.— Rev. T. M. Harris. 

Prat, how should I, a little lad, 

In speaking, irtake a figure ? 
You're only joking, I'm afraid — 

Do wait till I am bigger. 

But since you wish to hear my part, 

And urge me to begin it, 
I'll strive for praise with all my heart, 

Though small the hope to win it. 

I'll tell a tale how Farmer John 

A little roan-colt bred, sir, 
And every night and every morn 

He watered and he fed, sir. 

Said Neighbor Joe to Farmer John, 
" Arn't you a silly dolt, sir, 
To spend such time and care upon 
A little, useless colt, sir ?" 

Said Farmer John to Neighbor Joe, 
" I'll bring my little roan up, 
Not for the good he now can do, 
But will do when he's grown up." 

The moral you can well espy, 
To keep the tale from spoiling ; 

The little colt, you think, is I — 
I know it by your smiling. 



128 sterling's southern orator. 

And now, my friends, please to excuse 
My lisping and my stammers ; . 

I, for this once, have done my best, 
And so, I'll make my manners. 



xcvi. 
POWER OF ELOQUENCE.— Tupper. 

Come, I will tell thee of a joy which the parasites of pleas- 
ure have not known, 

Though earth, and air, and sea have gorged all the appetites 
of sense. 

Behold, what fire is in his eye, what fervor on his cheek ! 

That glorious burst of winged words ! — how bound they 
from his tongue ! 

The full expression of the mighty thought, the strong, tri- 
umphant argument, 

The rush of native eloquence, resistless as Niagara, 

The keen demand, the clear reply, the fine poetic image, 

The nice analogy, the clinching fact, the metaphor bold and 
free, 

The grasp of concentrated intellect wielding the omnipo- 
tence of truth, 

The grandeur of his speech, in his majesty of mind ! 

Champion of the right — patriot, or priest, or pleader of the 
innocent cause, 

Upon whose lips the mystic bee hath dropped the honey of 
persuasion, 

Whose heart and tongue have been touched, as of old, by 
the live coal from the altar, 

How wide the spreading of thy peace, how deep the draught 
of thy pleasures ! 

To hold the multitude as one, breathing in measured ca- 
dence ; 

A thousand men, with flashing eyes, -waiting upon thy will ; 

A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated fire ; 

Ten flaming spiritual hecatombs offered on the mount of 
God: 

And now a pause, a thrilling pause, — they live but in thy 
words, — 



sterling's southern orator. 129 

Thou hast broken the bonds of self, as the Nile at its rising. 
Thou art expanded into them, one faith, one hope, one 

spirit ; 
They breathe but in thy breath, their minds are passive unto 

thine, 
Thou turnest the key of their love, bending their affections 

to thy purpose, 
And all, in sympathy with thee, tremble with tumultuous 

emotions. 
Verily, O man, with truth for thy theme, eloquence shall 

throne thee with archangels. 



xcvu. 

MY BOYHOOD.— J. G. Saxe. 

Ah me ! those joyous days are gone ! 
I little dreamt, till they were flown, 

How fleeting were the hours ! 
For, lest he break the pleasing spell, 
Time bears for youth a muffled bell, 

And hides his face in flowers ! 

Ah ! well I mind me of the days, 

Still bright in memory's flattering rays, 

When all was fair and new, 
When knaves were only found in books, 
And friends were known by friendly looks, 

And love was always true ! 

While yet of sin I scarcely dreamed, 
And every thing was what it seemed, 

And all too bright for choice ; 
When fays were wont to guard my sleep, 
And Crusoe still could make me weep, 

And Santa Claus rejoice ! 

When heaven was pictured to my thought 
(In spite of all my mother taught 
Of happiness serene) 



130 STERLING'S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 

A theatre of boyish plays — 
One glorious round of holidays, 
Without a school between ! 

Ah me ! these joyous days are gone ; 
I little dreamt, till they were flown, 

How fleeting were the hours ! 
For lest he break the pleasing spell, 
Time bears for youth a muffled bell, 

And hides his face in flowers ! 



XCVIII. 

FRIENDSHIP.— Mrs. Nortok. 

We have been friends together, 

In sunshine and in shade, 
Since first beneath the chestnut trees 

In infancy we played. 
But coldness dwells within thy heart, 

A cloud is on thy brow ; 
We have been friends together ; 

Shall a light word part us now ? 

We have been gay together ; 

We have laughed at little jests ; 
For the fount of hope was gushing 

Warm and joyous in our breasts. 
But laughter now hath fled thy lip, 

And sullen glooms thy brow ; 
We have been gay together ; 

Shall a light word part us now ? 

We have been sad together ; 

We have wept with bitfer tears 
O'er the grass-grown graves, where slumbered 

The hopes of early years. 
The voices which were silent there 

Would bid thee clear thy brow; 
We have been sad together ; 

Shall a light word part us now ? 



sterling's southern orator. 131 

XCIX. 
THE JUDGMENT.— Milman. 

The chariot ! the chariot ! its wheels roll on fire, 

As the Lord cometh down in the pomp of His ire ; 

Self-moving it drives on its pathway of cloud, 

And the heavens with the burthen of Godhead are bowed. 

The glory ! the glory ! by myriads are poured 
The hosts of the angels to wait on their Lord ; 
And the glorified saints and the martyrs are there, 
And all who the palm-leaf of victory wear. 

The trumpet ! the trumpet ! the dead have all heard ; 
Lo the depths of the stone-vaulted charnel are stirred ; 
From the sea, from the land, from the south and the north, 
The vast generations of men are come forth. 

The judgment \ the judgment ! the thrones are all set, 
Where the Lamb and the white-vested elders are met \ 
All flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord, 
And the doom of eternity hangs on His word. 



c. 

SONG OF MARION'S MEN.— William C. Bryant. 

Our band is few, but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 

Our fortress is the good green wood, 

Our tent the cypress tree ; 
"We know the forest round us, 

As seamen know the sea. 

We know its walls of thorny vinos, 
Its glades of reedy grass, 



132 sterling's southern orator. 

Its safe and silent islands 
Within the dark morass. 

Woe to the English soldiery 
That little dread us near ! 

On them shall light at midnight 
A strange and sudden fear : 

When walking to their tents on fire 
They grasp their arms in vain, 

And they who stand to face us 
Are beat to earth again ; 

And they who fly in terror, deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

Then sweet the hour that brings release 
From danger and from toil ; 

We talk the battle over, 

And share the battle's spoil. 

Well knows the fair and friendly moon 
The band that Marion leads — 

The glitter of their rifles, 

The scampering of their steeds. 

? Tis life our fiery barbs to guide 
Across the moon-lit plains, 

? Tis life to feel the night wind 
That lifts their tossing manes. 

A moment in the British camp — 

A moment — and away 
Back to the pathless forest 

Before the peep of day. 

Grave men they are by broad Santee, 
Grave men with hoary hairs, 

Their hearts are all with Marion ; 
For Marion are their prayers. 



sterling's southern orator. , 133 

And lovely ladies greet our band, 

With kindliest welcoming, 
With smiles like those of summer, 

And tears like those of spring. 

For them we wear those trusty arms, 

And lay them down no more, 
Till we have driven the Briton 

Forever from our shore. 



ci. 

THE SAVOYARD'S RETURN.— Henry K. White. 

Oh, yonder is the well-known spot, 

My dear, my long-lost, native home ; 
Oh, welcome is yon little cot, 

Where I shall rest, no more to roam. 
Oh, I have travelled far and wide, 

O'er many a distant foreign land ; 
Each place, each province, I have tried, 

And sung and danced my saraband ; 
But all their charms could not prevail 
To steal my heart from yonder vale. 

Of distant climes the false report 

Allured me from my native land, 
It bade me rove, my sole support 

My cymbals and my saraband. 
. The woody dell, the hanging rock, 

The chamois skipping o'er the heights, 
The plain adorned with many a flock, 

And, oh, a thousand more delights, 
That grace yon dear, beloved retreat, 
Have backward won my weary feet. 

Now safe returned, with wandering tired, 
No more my little home I'll leave : 

And many a tale of what I've seen 
Shall wile away the winter's eve. 



131 . sterling's southern orator. 

Oh, I have wandered far and wide, 
O'er many a distant foreign land ; 

Each place, each province, I have tried, 
And sung and danced my saraband ; 

But all their charms could not prevail 

To steal my heart from yonder vale. 



en. 

TO FRIENDS IN HEAVEN.— So. Lit. Messenger. 

Hover around me, bright ones ! Earthly joy 
Must ever hold some taint of earth's alloy ; 
But to the glories of your perfect home 
Sorrow and bitterness can never come. 
Bright are the fields you tread, the prospects round, 
Illumed by His own smile — O joy profound ! 
But from your realms of light, oh, will not ye 
Come in your brightness near to pray with me ? 

Hover around me, dear ones ! while on earth 

Ye were most near and dear of mortal birth : 

Oh, let me not believe that, when refined 

By closer contact with Almighty mind, 

Your love hath passed away. Ah ! rather must 

That love be purified when freed from dust — 

O loved ones ! now from earth's restraints set free, 

Come with the love of heaven, and pray with me I 

Hover around me, blest ones ! ye have been 
Removed from suffering, from grief, and sin. 
The stones are fashioned here that must adorn 
The gorgeous temple of the great First-Born — 
Meet stones ye were, ye blest ones, who below 
Chiefly His love and service seemed to know. 
From earth to heaven ye looked : oh, will not ye 
From heaven to earth now bend, and pray with me ? 

Hover around me, loved ones ! loved while here, 
More loved in heaven's seraphic, holy sphere ! 



135 

Love tunes the harp of heaven, and on each note 

Celestial sounds of love and rapture float. 

No depth of earthly love can e'er compare 

With that which stirs the seraph's soul in prayer. 

Oh, may that love our hearts inspire ! And ye 

Blend your sweet thoughts with mine, and pray with me ! 



CHI. 

TELL ME, YE WINGED WINDS.— Chables Mackay. 

Tell me, ye winged winds, 

That round my pathway roar, 
Do you not know some spot 

Where mortals weep no more ? 
Some lone and pleasant dell, 
Some valley in the West, 
Where, free from toil and pain, 
The weary soul may rest ? 
The loud wind softened to a whisper low, 
And sighed for pity as it answered, " No !" 

Tell me, thou mighty deep, 

Whose billows round me play, 
Know'st thou some favored spot, 

Some island far away, 
Where weary man may find 

The bliss for which he sighs, 
Where sorrow never lives 

And friendship never dies ? 
The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow, 
Stopped for a while, and sighed to answer, " No !" 

And thou, serenp«t moon, 

That with such holy face 
Dost look upon the earth, 

Asleep in night's embrace, 
Tell me, in all thy round 

Hast thou not seen some spot 
Where miserable man 

Might find a happier lot ? 



136 sterling's southern orator. 

Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe, 
And a voice sweet, but sad, responded, " No !" 

Tell me, my secret soul, 

Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith, 
Is there no resting-place 

From sorrow, sin, and death ? 
Is there no happy spot 

Where mortals may be blessed, 
Where grief may find a balm, 

And weariness a rest ? 
Faith, Hope, and Love — best boons to mortals given, 
Waved their bright wings, and whispered, " Yes, in heaven /" 



civ. 

SLANDER.— Mes. Osgood. 

A whisper woke the air— 

A soft, light tone, and low, 
Yet barbed with shame and woe : 
Now might it only perish there, 
No further go ! 

Ah me ! a quick and eager ear 

Caught up the little meaning sound ; 

Another voice has breathed it clear, 
And so it wanders round, 

From ear to lip, from lip to ear, 

Until it reached a gentle heart, 
And that — it broke. 

It wds the only heart it found, 
The only heart 'twas meant to find, 

When first its accents woke : 
It reached that tender heart at last, 
And that — it broke. 

Low as it seemed to others' ears, 
It came a thunder crash to hers, — 
That fragile girl, so fair and gay, — 
That guileless girl, so pure and true ! 



sterling's southern orator. 

"Tis said a lovely humming-bird, 

That in a fragrant lily lay, 

And dreamed the summer morn away, 
Was killed but by the gun's report, 
Some idle boy had fired in sport ! 

The very sound — a death-blow came ! 

And thus her happy heart, that beat 
With love and hope so fast and sweet, 
When first that word 
Her light heart heard, 
It fluttered like the frightened bird, 
Then shut its wings and sighed, 
And with a silent shudder — died. 



cv. 

THE ONLY SON OF HIS MOTHER.— Mrs. Margaret J. Preston. 

u Oh, must he perish ? — must his breath 
Grow faint and fainter, and his eye 
Film over, till the mists of death 

Glaze it forever ? — must he die — 
My boy — my beauty ! When the blow, 
That struck me dumb, and laid me low, 
Descended through the stunning pain, 
That numbed my senses — crazed my brain, 
I felt his kisses on my brow ; 
I knew I was not all bereft, 
While only he, my boy was left : 
But who — but what is left me now I" 

Thus sat she — watching, waiting, till 
The latest long-drawn sigh was past, 

Her grief restrained, quick to fulfil 
Each loving office to the last. 

And when it all was over ; — when 

He did not kiss her back again, 

Nor lift his heavy eyelids up, 

In wistful tenderness, — her cup 



133 sterling's southern okatok. 

Could hold no drop of anguish more : 

And very bitter was her cry ; — 
" A widowed, childless mother, I, 
With not one gleam of hope before, 
Beseech Thee, Father, let me die I" 

They stretched the sleeper on his bier, 

And full of tender ruth for her, 
The neighbors came with many a tear, 

To bear him to the sepulchre. 
Out through the city's gates they went, 
One lonely mourner following, bent 
With ashen brow and garments rent. 

A wild despair was in her eye, 

A hopeless languor marked her tread ; 

And still the iterated cry 

Rang like a dirge : " My boy is dead !" 

Without the gates stood Jesus : He, 

At far Capernaum heard her prayer, 
And, touched with human sympathy, 

Had come to meet the sufferer there. 
Divinest pity filled the gaze 
That rested on that tear-dimmed face, 
And His own eye grew moistened too : 
Then, with a tone that thrilled her through, 
" Nay, woman, weep no more !" He*said : 
And while the awe-struck bearers stood, 
On through the wondering multitude 
He came, and touched the silent dead. 

"Young man, I say to thee arise !" 

The cerecloth stirred upon the brow, 
A tremor flushed the fast shut eyes, 
And see ! the lips are moving now ! 
" Mother, wipe off that ashy stain ; 
He moves — he breathes — he lives again ! 
Thou art not childless, lone, undone, 
Take to thy widowed arms thy son : 

And know that He who conquers death, 
Reclaims the flesh, and makes it whole, 
And fills anew the ruined soul 
With life, is Christ of Nazareth !" 



stealing's SOUTHERN ORATOR. 139 



CVI. 

" ETERNAL ART," TO HER SISTER, "SCIENCE." 
Paul H. Hatoe. 

u Come ! let us enter in ! 
Behold ! the portal gates stand open wide ; 
Only, from off thy spirit shake the dust 
Of any thought of sin 

Or sordid pride ; 
For sacred is the kingdom of my trust, 
By mind, and strength, and beauty sanctified !" 
She spoke ! and o'er the threshold of a sphere, 

A marvellous sphere, they passed ; 
From the deep bosom of the purpling air 
A lambent glory broke along the vast 
Horizon line, whence clouds like incense rolled 

Athwart a firmamental arc of gold 
And sapphire — clouds, not vapor-born, 
But clasping each the radiant seeds of morn, 
Which, sudden, the clear zenith heights attained, 
Burst into light, unfolding like a flower 
From out whose quivering heart a mystic shower 

Of splendor rained : 
A spell was hers to conquer time and space, 
For, from the desert grandeur of that place, 

A hundred temples rise ! 
The marble poems of the bards of old, 
Whereon 'twere well to look with reverent eyes, 
Because they body noblest aspirations, 
Ethereal hopes, and winged imaginations — 
Whether to fabled Jove their walls were raised, 
Or on their inner altars offerings blazed 
To wise Athene — or in Christian Rome, 
Beneath St. Peter's mighty-circling dome, 
A second heaven — the silver censers swing, 
The clear-toned choirs their hymn of rapture sing. 

They passed, and thousands more passed by with them ! 
Again Art's genius spake : " Lo ! these are they 
Who, through stern tribulations, 



140 sterling's southern orator. 

Have raised to right and truth the subject nations ; 

Lo ! these are they 
Who, were the whole bright concourse swept away — 
Their fame's last barrier built the tide to stem 
Of chaos and oblivion — whelmed beneath 
The pitiless torrent of eternal death, 
Would yet bequeath to races unbegot 
The precepts of a faith which dieth not ; 
Pointing from troublous toils of time and sense, 
From bootless struggles^ born of impotence — 

To that fair realm of thought, 
In whose bright calm these master workmen wrought, 
Where the full tides of perfect music swell 

Up to the heavens. 



cvn. 

MONTEREY.— -Charles Fenno Hoffman. 

We were not many — we who stood 

Before the iron sleet that day, 
Yet many a gallant spirit would 
Give half his years, if he but could 

Have been with us at Monterey. 

Now here, now there, the shot was hailed 

In deadly drifts of fiery spray, 
Yet not a single soldier quailed 
When wounded comrades round them wailed 

Their dying shout at Monterey. 

And on, still on, our column kept 

Through walls of flame its withering way, 
Where fell the dead the living stept, 
Still charging on the guns which swept 
The slippery streets of Monterey. 

The foe himself recoiled aghast, 

When, striking where he strongest lay, 
We swooped his flanking batteries past, 
And, braving full their murderous blast, 
Stormed home the towers of Monterey. 



sterling's southern oeator. 141 

Our banners o'er those turrets wave, 

And there our evening bugles play ; 
Where orange boughs above their grave 
Keep green the memory of the brave 
Who fought and fell at Monterey. 

We are not many — we who pressed 
Beside the brave who fell that day ; 

But who of us has not confessed 

He'd rather share their warrior rest 
Than not have been at Monterey ? 



CVIII. 
DANIEL WEBSTER.— O. W. Holmes. 

No gloom that stately shape can hide, 
No change uncrown its brow ; behold ! 

Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, 
Earth has no double from its mould. 

Ere from the field by valor won 
The battle smoke had rolled away, 

And bared the blood-red setting sun, 
His eyes were opened on the day. 

His land was but a shelving strip, 

Black with the strife that made it free ; 

He lived to see its banners dip 
Their fringes in the western sea. 

The boundless prairies learned his name, 
His words the mountain echoes knew, 

The northern breezes swept his fame 
From icy lake to warm bayou. 

In toil he lived, in peace he died, 
When life's full cycle was complete, 

Put off his robes of power and pride, 
And laid them at his Maker's feet. 



142 sterling's southern orator. 

His rest is by the storm-swept waves, 
Whom life's wild tempests roughly tried, 

Whose heart was like the streaming cave 
Of oceans throbbing at his side. 

Death's cold white hand is like the snow 
Laid softly on the furrowed hill ; 

It hides the broken seams below, 
And leaves its glories brighter still, 

In vain the envious tongue upbraids ; 

His name a nation's heart shall keep, 
Till morning's latest sunlight fades 

On the blue tablet of the deep. 



CIX. 
THE LILY A CONFIDANTE.— Henry Timrod. 

Lily ! lady of the garden ! 

Let me press my lips to thine ! — 
Love must tell its story, lily, 

Listen thou to mine.^ 

Two I choose to know the secret— 
Thee, and yonder "wordless flute, — 

Dragons watch nie, tender lily, 
And thou must be mute. 

There's a maiden, and her name is — 
Hist ! was that a rose-leaf fell ? 

Look ! the rose is listening, lily, 
And the rose may tell. 

Lily-browed and lily-hearted, 

She is very dear to me ; 
Lovely ? yes, if being lovely 

Is resembling thee. 

Six to half a score of summers 

Make the sweetest of the " teens" — 



sterling's southern orator. 143 

Not too young to guess, dear lily, 
What a lover means. 



Laughing girl, and thoughtful woman, 

I am puzzled how to woo ; 
Shall I praise, or pique her, lily ? 

Tell me what to do. 



" Silly lover, if thy lily, 
Like her sister lilies be, 
Thou must woo, if thou would'st wear her, 
With a simple plea. 



" Love's the lover's only magic, 
Honest truth the subtlest art — 
Lips that feign, and love that flatters, 
Win no modest heart. 



" Like the dew-drop in my bosom, 
Be thy guileless language, youth ! 
Falsehood buyeth falsehood only, 
Truth must purchase truth. 



st As thou talkest at the fireside, 
With the little children by ; 
As thou prayest in the darkness, 
When thy God is nigh ; 



" With a speech as chaste and gentle, 
And such meanings as become 
Ear of child or ear of angel, 
Speak, or be thou dumb." 



" Woo her thus, and she shall give thee, 
Of her heart, the sinless whole — 
All the girl Avithin her bosom, 
And her woman's soul." 



144 sterling's southern orator. 

ex. 

THE CONFESSION.— Blackwood's Magazine. 

There's something on my breast, father, 

There's something on my breast ! 
The livelong day I sigh, father, 

At night I cannot rest ; 
I cannot take my rest, father, 

Though I would fain do so, 
A weary weight oppresseth me, 

The weary weight of woe ! 

'Tis not the lack of gold, father, 

Nor lack of worldly gear ; 
My lands are broad and fair to see, 

My friends are kind and dear ; 
My kin are leal and true, father, 

They mourn to see my grief ; 
But, oh, 'tis not a kinsman's hand 

Can give my heart relief! 

'Tis not that Janet's false, father, 

'Tis not that she's unkind ; 
Though busy flatterers- swarm around, 

I know her constant mind. 
'Tis not her coldness, father, 

That chills my laboring breast, — 
It's that confounded cucumber 

I've ate and can't digest ! 



CXI. 

HENRY ST. GEORGE AND BEVERLY TUCKER. 
St. Geoege Tucker. 

If, in this picture-gallery of song, 
Two I select from that illustrious throng, 
And with affection's pencil, ever warm, 



sterling's southern orator. 145 

Touch the dim canvas of each honored form — 

If, rapt and pensive here too long I halt 

To mourn their loss, forgive the filial fault; 

The stream, that glides along its murmuring course, 

Remembers piously its parent source, 

And. when, exhaled, it soft ascends to heaven, 

And trembling hangs upon the cloud of even, 

'Twill often fall in gentle dews and rain 

Like pious drops, upon its fount again. 

Brothers they were, of pure and ancient blood, 

Gifted, and brave, and generous, and good ; 

In life's arena, steadfast, bold, and calm, 

Without the dust, they bore the victor's palm ; 

Resigned the volume of their lives to clasp, 

The world at length falls from their slackening grasp ; 

And they, whom cruel death could ne'er divide, 

Sleep in Virginia's valley side by side. 

Past is their day, and if, beyond their lives, 

The precious influence of their deeds survives, 

'Tis but the glow which, though the sun be set, 

Lingers in western clouds and gilds them yet. 



CXII. 

COMPETENCE.— Swift. 



I've often wished that I had clear, 

For life, six hundred pounds a year, 

A handsome house to lodge a friend, 

A river at my garden's end, 

A terrace walk, and half a rood 

Of land set out to plant a wood. 

Well, now I have all this and more, 

I ask not to increase my store ; 

But here a grievance seems to lie : 

All this is mine but till I die ; 

I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, 

To me and to my heirs forever, 

If I ne'er got or lost a groat 

By any trick or any fault ; 



146 sterling's southern orator. 

And if I pray for reason's rules, 
And not, like forty other fools, 
As thus, " Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker ! 
To grant me this and t'other acre ; 
Or, if it be Thy will and pleasure, 
Direct my plough to find a treasure !" 
But only what my station fits, 
And to be kept in my right wits ; 
Preserve, almighty Providence, 
Just what you gave me, competence, 
And let me in these shades compose 
Something in verse as true as prose. 



CXIII. 

A NEW YEAR'S WISH.— So. Lit. Messenger. 



Stern time has turned another page 
In his record-book of human age — 

That chronicle so dark, 
Where every act upon life's stage — 
Each footstep of our pilgrimage — 

He left some warning mark. 

ii. 

Now, from life's 1^ree another leaf, 
Bright with joy's hue, or dark with grief, 

Has fluttered to the ground, 
Where in a moment, sad and brief, 
'Twas gathered to his mighty sheaf 

In the past's garner bound. 

hi. 

The year just gone has spent its sands — 
Another, now, befpre thee stands 

Unread, unknown, and vast ; 
This, too, will glide from youth's strong hands 
Away to join the misty bands 

Which gather in the past. 



sterling's southern orator. 147 

IV. 

And, as it passes, may it be 
From every care and sorrow free . 

May it be brighter far 
Than tropic sunset on the sea, 
Than dreamy moonlight on the lea, 
Or light of vesper star ! 

v. 

In its bright west may hope's fair bow 
In promise shed a tranquil glow 

To 'lumine life's swift tide ; 
And in its calm and happy flow 
May sorrows melt like falling snow 

Upon the ocean wide. 

VI. 

And, as this opening year drifts past. 
May its last days profusely cast 

Life's blessings over thee. 
As when rich autumn-leaves fall fast 
The brightest linger to the last, 

Thus may this New Year be ! 



cxiv. 

TELL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.— J. S. Knowles. 

Ye crags and peaks : I'm with you once again ! 

I hold to you the hands ye first beheld, 

To show they still are free. Methinks I hear 

A spirit in your echoes answer me, 

And bid your tenant welcome to his home 

Again ! O sacred forms, how proud you look ! 

How high you lift your head into the sky ! 

How huge you are ! how rrlighty, and how free ! 

Ye are the things that tower, that shine, whose smile 

Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms, 

Robed or unrobed, do all the impi-ess wear 

Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty, 



148 sterling's southern orator. 

I'm with you once again ! I call to you 
With all my voice ! I hold my hands to you, 
To show they still are free. I rush to you 
As though I could embrace you ! 

Scaling yonder peak, 

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow 

O'er the abyss : his broad-expanded wings 

Lay calm and motionless upon the air, 

As if he floated there without their aid, 

By the sole act of his unlorded will, 

That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively 

I bent my bow ; yet kept he rounding still 

His airy circle, as in the delight 

Of measuring the ample range beneath 

And round about ; absorbed, he heeded not 

The death that threatened him. I could not shoot ! 

'Twas Liberty ! I turned my bow aside, 

And let him soar away ! 



cxv. 
THE PAST.— -Henby Timrod. 



To-day's most trivial act may hold the seed 

Of future fruitfulness or future dearth. 
Oh ! cherish always every word or deed : 

The simplest record of thyself has worth. 

If thou hast ever slighted one old thought, 
Beware lest grief enforce the truth at last — 

The time .must come in which thou shalt be taught 
The value and the beauty of the past. 

Not merely as a warner and a guide 
" A voice behind thee " sounding to the strife, 
But something never to be put aside, 
A part and parcel of thy present life. 

Not as a distant and a darkened sky 

Through which the stqj-s peep and the moonbeams glow, 



sterling's southern orator. 149 

But a surrounding atmosphere whereby 
We live and breathe, sustained 'mid pain and woe. 

A fairy land where joy and sorrow kiss, 
Each still to each corrective and relief — 

Where dim delights are brightened into bliss, 
And nothing wholly perishes but grief. 

Ah me ! not dies — no more than spirit dies, 

But in a change like death is clothed with wings, 

A serious angel with entranced eyes 
Looking to far off and celestial things. 



cxvi. 

THE FAMILY BIBLE.— Anonymous. 

How painfully pleasing the fond recollection 

Of youthful connections and innocent joy, 
When blessed with parental advice and affection, 

Surrounded with mercies, with peace from on high ! 
I still view the chair of my sire and my mother, 

The seats of their offspring are ranged on each hand, # 
And that richest of books, which excelled every other, 

That family Bible that lay on the stand ; 
The old-fashioned Bible, the dear, blessed Bible, 

The family Bible that lay on the stand. 

That Bible, the volume of God's inspiration, 

At morn and at evening could yield us delight, 
And the prayer of our sire was a sweet invocation 

For mercies by day and for safety through night. 
Our hymns of thanksgiving, with harmony swelling, 

All warm from the heart of a family band, 
Half-raised us from earth to that rapturous dwelling 

Described in the Bible that lay on the stand ; 
That richest of books, which excelled every other, 

The family Bible that lay on the stand. 

Ye scenes of tranquillity, long have we parted ; 
My hopes almost gone, and my parents no more ; 



150 sterling's southern orator. 

In sorrow and sadness I live broken-hearted, 

And wander unknown on a far-distant shore. 
Yet how can I donbt a dear Saviour's protection, 

Forgetful of gifts from His bountiful hand ? 
Oh, let me, with patience, receive His correction, 

And think of the Bible that lay on the stand ; 
That richest of books, which excelled every * other, 

That family Bible that lay on the stand. 



CXVII. 

THE LIGHT OF THE AGES.— Mrs. Gelman. 

When nature, at her primal birth, 

Lay crude and wild, from chaos born, 
A sable pall o'erspread the earth, 

A " darkness felt" before the dawn. 
Then came the mandate, " Be there light !" 

Young ocean brightened in its flow; 
It kindled up the mountain height, 

And cheered the humble vale below. 

When man lay plunged in deeper gloom 

That lowered around his moral sphere, 
When death, within the unyielding tomb, 

Sealed every hope the soul held dear, 
The " Sun of Righteousness " arose, 

Gave us the Father's will to know, 
And, while it tinged the mountain snows, 

Sought and revealed the vale below. 

Another cycle passed away ; 

Light dwelt alone in learning's bowers ; 
Monastic shadows, dim and gray, 

Absorbed man's intellectual powers ; 
And when the sun of letters shed 

A fitful lustre, struggling, slow, 
While gleaming on the mountain head, 

It left the vale in mist below. 



sterling's southern orator. 151 

But now, Christ's oriflamme, unrolled, 

Floats, rayed with love, o'er earth and sea ; 
And, breaking up mind's crusted mould, 

Thought springs to birth, elastic, free, 
And bids the School, with generous aim, 

Plant beacon lights along the land ; 
While hill and valley catch the flame, 

And pass the torch from hand to hand. 



CXVIXI. 
COLUMBIA, REMEMBER THY HEROES.— James G. Clark. 

Columbia, remember thy heroes of old, 

The pride of the world's brightest story ; 
Forget not the time when the tombstone was rolled 

From the sepulchred morn of thy glory. 
Ah, then, in his grandeur, thy Washington rose, 

When the last hope of freedom seemed faded ; 
And the legions of liberty gave to their foes 

A grave in the soil they invaded. 

And nations that slumbered in darkness and crime 

Awoke with a wondering devotion, 
To see thee burst forth from the shadows of time, 

Like the sun from the mist of the ocean. 
The wilderness sang in the beams of thy worth, 

And peace like a diadem crowned thee, 
When discord and ruin were rocking the earth, 

And kingdoms were reeling around thee. 



And now, in the power of beauty and youth, 

A beacon to wanderers benighted, 
Shall tyranny witness a stain on thy truth, 

And scoff at thy purity blighted ? 
How long must the craft of the felon and knave 

Pollute what thy fathers defended ? 
How long, at thy shrines, must the prayers of the brave 

With the creed of the bigot be blended ? 



152 sterling's southern- orator. 

Columbia, remember thy heroes of yore, 

The pride of the world's brighter glory ; 
Forget not the time when they fell on thy shore, 

In the wild, crimson morn of thy glory. 
Though shrouded in darkness their bodies repose, 

Let their truth to thy children be given ; 
As the day star, when lost in the dark billow, throws 

Its light o'er the millions of even. 



cxix. 
PADDY'S METAMORPHOSIS.— Thomas Mooke. 

About fifty years since, in the days of our daddies, 

That plan was commenced which the wise now applaud, 

Of shipping off Ireland's most turbulent paddies 
As good raw materials for settlers abroad. 

Some West-Indian island, whose name I forget, 

Was the region then chosen for the scheme so romantic ; 

And such the success the first colony met, 

That a second soon after set sail o'er the Atlantic. 

Behold them now safe at the long looked for shore, 

Sailing in between banks that the Shannon might greet, 

And thinking of friends, whom, but two years before, 
They had sorrowed to lose, but would soon again meet. 

And hark ! from the shore a glad welcome there came 
" Arrah, Paddy from Cork, is it you, my swate boy ?" 

While Pat stood astounded to hear his own name 
Thus hailed by black creatures, who capered for joy. 

iC Can it possibly be ?" Half amazement, half doubt, 
Pat listens again ; rubs his eyes and looks steady ; 

Then heaves a deep sigh, and in horror yells out, 
" Dear me — only think — black and curly already !" 

Deceived by that well-mimicked brogue in his ears, 
Pat read his own doom in these wool-headed figures, 



sterling's southern orator. 153 

And thought, " What a climate, in less than two years. 
To turn a whole cargo of Pats into niggers!" 



cxx. 

BOOKS.-A. J. C. 



Books, books, books, the graciousness of books ! 
When the world goes all awry, 
And the heart can only sigh, 
What a pleasure 'tis to fly 

To one's books, books, books. 

Books, books, books, the blessedness of books ! 
When w r earied out with care 
That seems too hard to bear, 
What helps the load to share 

Like one's books, books, books ! 

Books, books, books, the tenderness of books ! 
In the long sleepless night, 
When slumber quits us quite, 
How cheering then and bright 

Are our books, books, books ! 

Books, books, books, the usefulness of books ! 
'Tis in their welcome pages 
We talk with buried sages 
Of the long bygone ages, 

In their books, books, books ! 

Books, books, books, the constancy of books ! 
Our friends may fall away, 
Our dearest hopes decay, 
But they never do betray, 

Faithful books, books, books ! 

Books, books, books, the everlasting Book ! 

Who does not wish to hear — 
" When we all shall appear " — 
His record there is clear ? 

In that final Book ! 



154 sterling's southern orator. 

CXXI. 

LINES TO A SOUTHERN LADY.— Emeline S. Smith. 

When chilling winds and changing skies 
Proclaim that summer's reign is o'er, 

Our groves, though clad in rainbow dyes, 
Resound with gladsome songs no more ; 

Far off our woodland minstrels roam, 

To warble in a summer home, 

'Tis autumn now— -the birds have fled ; 

Sere leaves bestrew the darkened ground ; 
Summer's sweet roses all are dead, 

And winds have such a wailing sound, 
They seem to breathe in every tone 
A requiem for the flow'rets gone. 

Tet, gentle maid, when late I heard 
Thy voice melodious echoing near, 
Methought again the wild-wood bird 

Murmured its music in my ear ; 
Methought the summer's warmth and bloom, 
Its floods of light, its soft perfume, 
By fairy agency had come, 
To bless once more my winter home. 

And truth, there was a fairy spell 
In those rich links of silvery sound ; 

So light they rose, so soft they fell, 
Our living souls were captive bound ; 

And from that sweet subduing chain 

We wished not to be free again. 

Thou song-bird from a southern clime, 
Oh, linger in our northern bowers, 

And in this dreary autumn time 

Bring back a dream of summer hours — 

A dream whose sweetness still shall be 

Type of thy music and of thee. 



STEKLING ? S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 155 

CXXII. 

THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION.— John R. Thompson. 

" Oh, by the mighty shades that wander still 

Where Glory consecrated Bunker Hill, 

By those who sleep 'neath Buena Vista's slopes, 

By the past's greatness and the future's hopes — 

By every honored, unforgotten name, 

Linked with your dearest Capitolian fame — 

By the proud memories and traditions all 

That live forever in the classic hall 

Where priceless pearls fell fast from Pinkney's tongue, 

And Wit's bright diamonds Randolph round him flung ; 

Where listening Senates owned the magic sway 

And thrilled to hear the clarion voice of Clay ; 

Where Webster, through all seasons, grandly strove 

'Gainst Fraud and Faction with the might of Jove ; 

And Reason gave you her divinest boon 

In the pure logic of the great Calhoun ; — 

By this august Triumvirate of mind, 

By all the lessons they have left behind, 

By your loved hearthstones and your altar fires, 

And by the sacred ashes of your sires, 

Your angry strifes and fierce dissensions cease, 

And bless the country with domestic peace ; 

Guard well the Union ! — Freedom's last defence 

And only hope of Freedom's permanence — 

Maintain the Constitution ! — let it stand, 

And shine the Pallas of this Western Land. 

So shall Columbia act her destined part 

As patroness of Learning, Labor, Art, 

So shall she usher in the Golden Age 

When War no more shall stain th' historic page ; 

When down the glacis childish feet shall stray, 

And little urchins on the bastions play ; 

When ivy o'er each battlement shall run 

And cobwebs line the chamber of the gun, 

While Love's warm beams shall gild the placid isles 

And the blue seas forever sleep in smiles !" 



156 sterling's southern orator. 

CXXIII. 
THE HEART AND THE BIRD.— A. B. Meek. 

There is a white bird of the sea 

Beneath the southern sky, 
That ever soaring seems to be 

Where tossing breezes fly: 
No eye has ever seen him rest ; 
No fowler knows his secret nest ; 

But far away, in starry isles. 
That gem the dimpled wave, 

Where blue-eyed summer ever smiles 
And pearls the waters pave, 

'Mid snowy shells, bright flowers above, 

He keeps his hidden nest of love ! 

My heart is like that southern bird ; 

Its pinions never rest 
Amid these scenes where naught is heard 

But idle song and jest. 
It sports around on fluttering wing, 
It seems a gay, unthoughted thing ; 

But far away it has a shrine, 
Hid from the vulgar gaze, 

Where nature's brightest beauties shine 
Around an angel's face, 

There, like that restless ocean dove, 

It keeps its hidden nest of love. 

Yes, dearest, though afar from me, 

Thou art my only joy — 
A green isle in life's sunniest sea — 

Far from this wild annoy, 
Oh, would my weary heart could fly 
To greet thy soft, beloved eye. 

When bowered in bliss, from care remote 
Our lives in peace and pride, 

Like yon sun-tinted barks should float 
Adown the future tide ! 

Bird of the ocean ! soar above ! 

Mine is a sweeter nest of love ! 



sterling's southern orator, 157 

CXXIV. 
FUNERAL OF HENRY CLAY.— Mrs. M. B. Clarke. 

Toll on ! ye mournful bells, toll on ! 

A mighty spirit's fled ; 
E'en heaven itself is weeping o'er 

The statesman lying dead. 
Boom on ! boom on ! ye minute guns, 

And through the sounding air, 
Up to his noble soul's abode, 

A nation's sorrow bear. 

The eagle of our land, whose wings 

Spread o'er each ocean's spray, 
Dropped from his grasp a noble dart, 

When Death laid claim to Clay ! 
He to the Stars and Stripes belonged, 

No State can claim his name ; 
The champion of our common flag, 

He gained his world-wide fame. 

No blood-stained laurels bound his brow, 

He caused no tears to flow ; 
His was the mighty strife of mind 

Against his country's foe. 
He never trimmed his noble bark 

To catch the breeze of state ; 
He scorned to watch its shifting vane, 

Or for its sanction wait. 

His voice full oft has stilled the strife 

Which in our country rose, 
And made the children of our land 

To deem their brethren foes. 
Like Roman Curtius when the gulf 

Yawned in the Forum wide, 
He flung himself into the breach 

And calmed the angry tide. 

His eagle eye saw at a glance 
What course to honor led. 



158 sterling's southern - orator, 

His mighty spirit never shrank 
The patriot's path to tread. 

Toll on ! ye mournful bells, toll on ! 
Your sad funereal knell 

Makes every ardent freeman's breast 
With pride and sorrow swell. 

We glory in the mighty mind 

That flashed like lightning's play, 
And both Americas shall weep 

The loss of Henry Clay. 
Boom on !' boom on ! ye minute guns ! 

As each discharge is given, 
A shower of sympathetic tears 

Falls from the arch of heaven ! 



cxxv. 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBTTS.--James Barron Hope. 

,Onb heaven-directed genius laid his hand 

Upon the hilt of Providence ; the brand 

Required the force of the human race 

To draw it from its scabbard's resting-place — 

Ages to wield it in the noble van 

Which gave this Western Hemisphere to man. 

Fain would I linger on that splendid age, 

To which he gave its very brightest page ; 

Fain sing his godlike majesty of mind, 

Which looked right onward, never glanced behind, 

While, 'neath his brow, lit with the glow of hope, 

It, toiling, cast the whole world's horoscope. 

Fain would I paint his griefs in those sad hours 

When all his hopes seemed like the last year's flowers : 

Fain follow him through all his dreary years 

Of pain and poverty and bitter tears ; 

From convent porch to regal palaoe gate, 

Tracing his footsteps as he charged on Fate, 

Which built new ramparts in his path each day 

Until his brow was knit — his dark locks gray. 



sterling's southern orator. 159 

Fain would I pause at Palos, when the breeze 

His caravellas swept toward unknown seas ; 

Fain follow where his daring vessels sped, 

Strange tides beneath — strange planets overhead ; 

Fain would I dwell upon that happy day, 

When, on the new-found shore, he knelt to pray : 

That Easter-day, when, with the great seas' boom. 

Making the music of his mass, the tomb 

Gave up his dream, which now in beauty rose, 

Like Christ awakened after His repose. 

Was this the thought ! Christ's was the name he gave 

To that fair island smiling on the wave. 



cxxvi. 

THE MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE.— James G. Percival. 

Each lonely spot was hallowed then — the oak 

That o'er the village altar hung would tell 

Strange hidden things ; the old remembered well, 

How from its gloom a spirit often spoke ; 

There was not then a fountain or a cave 

But had its reverend oracle, and gave 

Responses to the fearful crowd, who came 

And called the indwelling deity by name. 

Then every snowy 4>eak, that lifted high 

Its shadowy cone to meet the bending sky, 

Stood like a heaven of loneliness and light; 

And as the gilt-cloud rolled its glory by, 

Chariots and steeds of flame stood harnessed there, 

And gods came forth and seized the golden reins, 

Shook the bright scourge, and through the boundless air 

Rode over starry fields and azure plains. 

It was a beautiful and glorious dream, 

Such as would kindle high the soul of song; 

The bard who struck his harp to such a theme 

Gathered new beauty as he moved along. 

His way was now through wilds and beds of flowers ; 

Rough mountains met him now ; and then, again, 

Gay valleys, hung with vines in woven bowers, 

Led to the bright waves of the purple main. 



160 sterling's southern orator. 

All seemed one bright enchantment then ; — but now, 
Since the long sought for goal of truth is won, 
Nature stands forth unveiled with cloudless brow, 
On earth One Spirit of Life, in heaven One Sun. 



CXXVII. 

SENECA LAKE.— James G. Percivak 

On thy fair bosom, silver lake ! 

The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, 
And round his breast the ripples break, 

As down he bears before the gale. 

On thy fair bosom, waveless stream ! 

The dipping paddle echoes far, 
And flashes in the moonlight gleam, 

And bright reflects the polar star. 

The waves along thy pebbly shore, 

As blows the north wind, heave their foam, 

And curl around the dashing oar, 
As late the boatman hies him home. 

« 
How sweet, at set of sun, to view 

The golden mirror spreading wide, 
And see the mist of mantling blue 

Float round the distant mountain's side. 

At midnight hour, as shine the moon, 

A sheet of silver spreads below, 
And swift she cuts, at highest noon, 

Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow. 

On thy fair bosom, silver lake ! 

Oh, I could ever sweep the oar, 
When early birds at morning wake, 

And evening tells us toil is o'er. 



sterling's southern orator. 161 



CXXVIII. 

AFTER.— Anonymous. 

After the shower, the tranquil sun ; 

After the snow, the emerald leaves ; 
Silver stars when the day is done ; 

After the harvest, golden grain. 

After the clouds, the violet sky ; 

After the tempest, the lull of the waves ; 
Quiet woods when the winds go by ; 

After the battle, peaceful graves. 

After the knell, the marriage bells ; 

After the bud, the radiant rose ; 
Joyful greetings from sad farewells ; 

After weeping, sweet repose. 

After the burden, the blissful meed ; 

After the flight, the downy nest ; 
After the furrow, the waking seed ; 

After the shadowy river — rest. 



CXXIX. 

FEMALE PATRIOTISM.— John R. Thompson. 

Still Honor be to Woman ! she has shown 

The loftiest patriotism earth has known — 

Not on the hustings claiming equal rights 

With sterner man — ah, hatefulest of sights ! 

But when some noble purpose fires the heart 

Or bids the sympathetic feelings start; 

When War holds carnival, 'mid heaps of slain, 

With Death, on Glory's drenched and crimsoned plain, 

Or Pestilence in darkness walks abroad 

And renders desolate each doomed abode, 

See with what joy her holy presence fills 

A Norfolk's streets or Balaklava's hills ! 



162 sterling's southern orator. 

Oh, if no strain of minstrel can avail 

To hymn the praise of Florence Nightingale, 

My rugged verse how miserably weak 

That nobler heroine's renown to speak, 

Who with the Fever waged th' unequal strife, 

And bore, in danger's paths, a charmed life ! 

A brighter page her record shall display, 

And every tear that she has wiped away 

Shall crystallize into a brilliant gem 

To glitter in her heavenly diadem ! 

Yes, Honor be to Woman ! hers the praise, 
When strife and tumult loud their voices raise, 
That piously she turns her moistened eye 
To where our greatest chieftain's ashes lie 
Beneath Mount Vernon's ever sacred sward, 
And seeks from insult and decay to guard 
The holiest spot the sun e'er shone upon — ■ 
The long-neglected grave of WASHINGTON ! 



cxxx. 

STANZAS ON DEATH.— Anonymous. 

How sweet to sleep where all is peace, 
Where sorrow cannot reach the breast, 

Where all life's idle throbbings cease, 
And pain is lulled to rest ; 

Escaped o'er fortune's troubled wave, 

To anchor in the silent grave ! 

That quiet land, where, peril past, 
The weary win a long repose ; 

The bruised spirit finds, at last, 
A balm for all its woes ; 

And lowly grief and lordly pride 

Lie down, like brothers, side by side. 

The breath of slander cannot come 
To break the calm that lingers there ; 



sterling's southern orator. 163 

There is no dreaming in the tomb, 

Nor waking to despair ; 
Unkindness cannot wound us more, 
And all earth's bitterness is o'er. 



The mother — she has gone to sleep, 
With the babe upon her breast ; 

She has no weary watch to keep 
Around her infant's rest ; 

His slumbers on her bosom fair 

Shall never more be broken — there. 



How blessed — how blessed that home to gain, 
And slumber in that soothing sleep, 

From which wq never rise to pain 
Nor ever wake to weep ! 

To win our way from the tempest's roar, 

And reach with joy that heavenly shore ! 



CXXXI. 

AUTUMN.— Paul H. Hayne. 



Here, friend ! upon this lofty ledge sit down ! 
And view the beauteous prospect spread below, 
Around, above us ; in the noonday glow 

How calm the landscape rests ! yon distant town, 

Enwreathed with clouds of foliage like a crown 
Of rustic honor ; the soft silvery flow 
Of the clear stream beyond it, and the show 

Of endless wooded heights, circling the brown 
Autumnal fields alive with billowy grain ; 

Say ! hast thou ever gazed on aught more fair 
In Europe or the Orient ? what domain, 
(From India to the sunny slopes of Spain,) 

Hath beauty, wed to grandeur in the air, 
Blessed with an ampler charm, a more benignant reign ? 



164: STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 



II. 



The rainbows of the heaven are not more rare, 
More various, and more beautiful to view, 
Than these rich forest rainbows dipped in dew 

Of morn and evening, glimmering on the air 

From wooded dell and mountain summit fair ; 
O Autumn ! wondrous painter ! every hue 
Of thy immortal pencil is steeped through 

"With essence of divinity ; how bare 

Beside thy coloring the poor shows of Art, 

Though Art were thrice inspired ; in dreams alone, 
(The loftiest dreams wherein the soul takes part,) 

Of jasper pavements, and the sapphire throne 

Of heaven, hath such unearthly brightness shone 
To flush and thrill the visionary heart ! 



CXXXII. 

BAD HABITS.— Isabella E. Bykne. 

Weaving silently round the soul 

Crawls the spider of sin ; 
* Who cannot break his weak control ?" 

Nothing but threads he can spin. 
Nothing but threads, thin little threads, 

Beautiful sunshiny strings, 
Round our hands, our feet, our heads ; 
" Who fears such bright little things ?" 
See, see ! that silken glistening thread! 

'Tis red as it swings in the breeze ; 
It waves and it sways till it wraps round my head : 
" Who cares what father or mother has said ? 

I say and I'll do what I please. 5 ' 

See, see! another; 'tis green, but 'tis bright; 

It dances and tosses like fun ; 
It floats in the sunbeam, it bathes in the light, 
It winds round my hands, and it binds them tight, 

And I do what I would not have done. 



sterling's southern orator. 165 

Another ; oh, that is a bright golden thread ; 

Ah ! 'tis strong and 'tis thick, though 'tis bright ; 
It catches my feet, and it draws them along, 
And I follow, not willing, a wild noisy throng, 

And they lead me far out in the night : 
My head, my hands, my feet are now bound ; 

What would I not give to be free ! 
I cannot unwrap them, my strength cannot break, 

Arid they've lost all their brightness to me. 



THE UNKNOWN.— So. Lit. Messenger. 

They found her dead, 
One snowy morning in the open street, 
Her white cheek resting on the pearly sheet 

Around her spread. 
And on her lip a peaceful smile reposed, 
As if in slumber life's short dream had closed. 

She slept the last long sleep, 
Death's hand had touched her heart, and she had passed, 
Tired and suffering, to her home at last, 

Leaving no friends to weep, 
No kindred ones to come at eve's hushed hours 
To sprinkle on her bosom tears and flowers. 

No soft and gentle hand 
Clasped hers w^ith tenderness, as in the night 
She went out meekly from this world of light 

Into the shadowy land. 
No earthly watcher lingered at her side 
To hear her last low whisper when she died. 

But did she die alone ? 
No, not alone, one loving heart was near, 
One sleepless friend bent kindly down to hear 

The voice of the unknown. 
One gentle arm sustained her drooping head, 
One soothing hand made soft the dying bed. 



166 sterling's southern orator. 

And angels came 
With shining wings and white robes from above, 
Breathing sweet words of truth and hope and love, 

Calling her by her name. 
And as a lamb they bore her o'er death's foam 
Up to the " better land " to friends and home. 



cxxxiv. 
A SUMMER SCENE.— Dr. Isaac Watts. 

How fine has the day been, how bright was the sun, 
How lovely and joyful the course that he run, 
Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun, 

And there followed some droppings of rain ! 
But now the fair traveller's come to the west, 
His rays are all gold, and his beauties *are best ; 
He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest, 

And foretells a bright rising again. 

Just such is the Christian : his course he begins, 
Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins, 
And melts into tears ; then he breaks out and shines, 

And travels his heavenly way : 
But when he comes nearer to finish his race, 
Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace, 
And gives a sure hope, at the end of his days, 

Of rising in brighter array. 



cxxxv. 
MEETING OF SATAN AND DEATH.— Milton. 

" Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, 
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance 
Thy miscreated front athwart my way 
To yonder gates ? through them I mean to pass, 
That be assured, without leave asked of thee : 
Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof, 
Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of heaven." 



sterling's southern orator. 167 

To whom the goblin full of wrath replied : 
" Art thou that traitor-angel, art thou he, 
Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then 
Unbroken ; and in proud, rebellious arms, 
Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons 
Conjured against the Highest ; for which both thou 
And they, outcast from God, are here condemned 
To waste eternal days in woe and pain ? 
And reckooest thou thyself with spirits of heaven, 
Hell-doomed, and breath'st defiance here and scorn, 
Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more, 
Thy king and lord ? Back to thy punishment, 
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings, 
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue 
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart 
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." 



CXXXVI. 

WOLSEY'S SOLILOQUY.— Shakespeahe. 

Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him : 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; 
And — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory ; 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 
At length broke under me ; and now has left me, 
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : 
I feel my heart new opened. Oh, how wretched 
Is thatpoor man that hangs on princes' favors ! 
There is betwixt that smile he would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have ; 



163 sterling's southern orator. 

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again ! 



CXXXVII. 

THE TRUE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS.— DH. Johnson. 

Where, then, shall hope and fear their objects find? 
Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind ? 
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, 
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate ? 
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, 
No cries invoke the mercies of the skies ? 
Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain, 
Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. 
Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. 
Safe in His power, whose eyes discern afar 
The secret ambush of a specious prayer, 
Implore His aid, in His decisions rest, 
Secure whate'er He gives, He gives the best. 
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, 
And strong devotion to the skies aspires, 
Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, 
Obedient passions, and a will resigned ; 
For love, which scarce collective man can fill ; 
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill ; 
For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, 
Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat : 
These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain, 
These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain ; 
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, 
And makes the happiness she does not find. 



sterling's southern orator. 169 

cxxxviii. 

UNDER THE SNOW.— John H. Bonner. 

The brown old earth lies quiet and still 

Under the snow, 
The furrows are hid on the broken hill 

Under the snow, 
Every thing is fringed with mossy pearl, 
The drooping cedars bend to the ground, 
The rose-bush is drifted into a mound, 
And still from the silent sky to the ground 
The white flakes noiselessly whirl. 

The roads and fields are buried deep 

Under the snow, 
The hedges lie in a tangled heap 

Under the snow. 
And the little gray rabbits under them creep, 
While the twittering sparrows cunningly peep 
From the sheltering briers, and cosily sleep 

Under the snow. 

The rough old barn and the sheds near by, 
The mounted straw of the wheat and rye, 

Are covered with snow ; 
The straggling fences are softened with down, 
Every post is white, w^ith a beautiful crown 

Of drifted snow. 

And I think, as I sit in the gloaming here, 
Watching the objects disappear, 
How many things are folded low 
Under the drifts of the felling snow : 
There are hearts that once were full of love 

Under the snow ; 
There are eyes that glowed with the soul of love 

Under the snow ; 
There are faded tresses of golden hair ; 
There are locks that were bleached with the frost of care ; 
There are lips that once were like the rose ; 
There are bosoms that once were stung with woes ; 



170 steeling's southeek oeatoe. 

There are breasts that once were true and strong ; 
There are forms that once were praised in song : 
Oh ! there's a strange and a mighty throng 
Under the snow. 

Another mound will once lie deep 

Under the snow, 
And I will with the pale ones sleep 

Under the snow. 
O God ! stream on my soul Thy grace, 
That in the lovelight of Thy face 
I may rejoice when death shall place 
My pulseless heart and body low 

Under the snow ! 



CXXXIX. 

KING EICHAED.—So. Lit. Messenger. 

While in captivity lie wrote the Sirvente : La I nus horns pris ne diva , 
raison : of which the following is a translation. 

If a poor prisoner may not tell his wrong 

But in the plaintive dialect of grief, 
He may beguile his weary soul with song. 

Friends have I ; but they yield me no relief. 
For want of ransom these two winters drear 
I pine imprisoned here. 

Let them all know : — my men, my barons proud, 
English or Norman, or my Gascons bold, 

There is not one so poor in all the crowd 

Whose dungeon to unbar I'd spare my gold : 

Yet none shall I reproach with words severe, 
Though pining captive here. 

A captive hath no friend : all human ties 
Break in the hour of trial and of need. 

Men love their treasure more than him who lies 
Far and forgotten : yet let them take heed ! 

How tarnished their fair honor would appear 
If I should perish here ! 



stealing's southern orator. 171 

Friends whom I loved, and whom my heart loves still, 
Trust me, that heart, whate'er its faults, was true ; 

Silver and gold, as chance and fortune will 
Their transient vicissitudes pursue : 

But to you all the unfaltering faith is clear 
Of the lone captive here. 

You, my proud foes, whose hearts have grown so vain, 

The day of retribution is at hand. 
Wait for the end ; for we shall meet again. 

Ay, tell them so, Caryl and Readybrand, 
My troubadours, who mourn with grief sincere 
The captive pining here. 



CXL. 
SOLITUDE.— Kobeut Pollok. 



Pleasant were many scenes, but most to me 
The solitude of vast extent, untouched 
By hand of art, where nature sowed herself, 
And reaped her crops ; whose garments were the clouds ; 
Whose minstrels brooks ; whose lamps the moon and stars ; 
Whose organ-choir the voice of many waters; 
Whose banquets morning dews ; whose heroes storms ; 
Whose warriors mighty winds; whose lovers flowers; 
Whose orators the thunderbolts of God ; 
Whose palaces the everlasting hills ; 
Whose ceiling heaven's unfathomable blue; 
And from whose rocky turrets battled high 
Prospect immense spread out on all sides round, 
Lost now beneath the welkin and the main, 
Now walled with hills that slept above the storm. 
Most fit was such a place for musing men, 
Happiest sometimes when musing without aim. 
It was, indeed, a wondrous sort of bliss 
The lonely bard enjoyed when forth he walked, 
Unpurposed ; stood, and knew not why ; sat down, 
And knew not where ; arose, and knew not when ; 
Had eyes, and saw not ; cars, and nothing heard ; 



172 sterling's southern orator, 

And naught— sought neither heaven nor earth — sought 

naught ; 
Nor meant to think ; but ran meantime through vast 
Of visionary things, fairer than aught 
That was ; and saw the distant tops of thoughts, 
Which men of common stature never saw. 



CXLI. 
TO MY MOTHER.— William R. Wallace. 

Thou wert my teacher, where the dark wood, bending 

O'er the glad waters, wooed the soft blue air; 
And there thy voice with winds and waters blending 

For thy soul's treasure breathed a fervent prayer — 
The starry poems of creation shining 

On the broad page of heaven's bright mystic dome, 
Whilst in the shade of its dim light reclining 

Thou pictured'st forth the spirit's final home. 

Oh, for that hour again when, softly stealing 

In the dim twilight from all stranger eyes, 
I marked thee weeping, and, together kneeling 

By a lone grave, looked on the glorious skies — 
Dreaming we saw the husband, sire, imploring 

For us amid the white-robed seraph-band, 
That we at last might bow with him adoring 

Among the armies of the " Better Land." 

But now deep wrongs to wild remembrance calling, 

Close my young soul to sympathy and love, 
Like murky clouds, black, stern, and thickly falling, 

Where God's bright rainbow glittered once above. 
Here ! here ! forever here we feel the fire, 

Unquenched by blood-drops of the heart and frame, 
Nor wealth nor tall ambition's glory can aspire 

To ease the spirit of its torturing flame. 

Yet unto thee, dear mother, when a- weary 
With the world's strife, would I a boy return, 



sterling's southern orator. 173 

And, like a child lost in the forest dreary, 

Weep o'er the dust of Memory's holy urn— • 
And with thee kneel beneath the sphered air, 
And know that, as of old, our God watched o'er us there. 



CXLII. 
TIME.— a. D. Prentice. 



Remorseless Time ! 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity ? On, still on 
He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
' Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
The fury of the northern hurricane, 
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, 
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down 
To rest upon his mountain crag. But Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
His rushing pinions. Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow ; cities rise and sink 
Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles 
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns ; mountains rear 
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain ; new empires rise, 
Gathering the strength of the hoary centuries, 
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, 
Startling the nations ; and the very stars, 
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, 
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, 
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away 
To darkle in the trackless void. Yet Time, 
Time the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career. 
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not, 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 



174 sterling's southern orator. 

To Sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. 



CXLIII. 
EYE'S LAMENT.—MiLTOtf. 



. . . Adam at the news 
Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood, 
That all his senses bound ; Eve, who unseen 
Yet all had heard, with audible lament 
Discovered soon the place of her retire. 

" O unexpected stroke, worse than of death ! 
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave 
Thee, native soil ! these happy walks and shades, 
Fit haunt of gods ? where I had hope to spend, 
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day 
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers, 
That never will in other climate grow, 
My early visitation, and my last 
At even, which I bred up with tender hand 
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names ! 
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank 
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ? 
Thee lastly, nuptial bower ! by me adorned 
With what to sight or smell was sweet ! from thee 
How shall I part, and whither wander down 
Into a lower world ; to this obscure 
And wild ? how shall we breathe in other air 
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits ?" 



CXLIV. 
MAN.— Young. 



How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 
How complicate, how wonderful is man ! 
How passing wonder He who made him such ! 
Who centred in our make such strange extremes, 



sterling's southern orator. 175 

From different natures marvellously mixed, 
Connection exquisite of distant worlds ! 
Distinguished link in being's endless chain ! 
Midway from nothing to the Deity ! 
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt ! 
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine ! 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! 
An heir of glory ! a frail child of dust : 
Helpless immortal ! insect infinite ! 
A worm ! a god ! I tremble at myself, 
And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger, 
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, 
And wondering at her own. How reason reels ! 
Oh, what a miracle to man is man ! 
Triumphantly distressed ! what joy ! what dread ! 
Alternately transported and alarmed ! 
What can preserve my life ! or what destroy ! 
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave ; 
Legions of angels can't confine me there. 



CXLV. 

THE BETTER LAND.— Mrs. Hemans. 

"I hear thee speak of the better land ; 
Thou call'st its children a happy band : 
Mother ! oh, where is that radiant shore ? 
Shall we not seek it, and weep no more ? 
Is it where the flower of the orange blows, 
And the fireflies glance through the myrtle boughs ?" 
" Not there, not there, my child." 

"Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise 
And the date grows ripe under sunny skies ? 
Or 'midst the green islands of glittering seas, 
Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze, 
And strange, bright birds on their starry wings 
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things ?" 
"Not there, not there, my child." 



176 sterling's southern orator. 

" Is it far away in some region old, 
Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold, 
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine, 
And the diamond lights up the secret mine, 
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand ? 
Is it there, sweet mother, that better land ?" 
" Not there, not there, my child." 

" Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy ; - 
Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy; 
Dreams cannot picture a world so fair ; 
Sorrow and death may not enter there, 
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom ; 
For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb, 
It is there, it is there, my child.' 5 



CXLVI. 

THE REMOVAL.— Anonymous. 



■ 

A nervous old gentleman, tired of trade, 
By which, though, it seems, he a fortune had made ; 
Took a house 'twixt two sheds, at the skirts of the town, 
Which he meant, at his leisure, to buy and pull down. 

This thought struck his mind when he viewed the estate ; 
But, alas ! when he entered he found it too late ; 
For in each dwelt a smith : — a more hard-working two 
Never doctored a patient or put on a shoe. 

At six in the morning, their anvils, at work, 
Awoke our good squire, who raged like a Turk : 
" These fellows," he cried, a such a clattering keep, 
That I never can get above eight hours of sleep." 

From morning till night they keep thumping away — 
No sound but the anvil the whole of the day : 
His afternoon's nap, and his daughter's new song, 
Were banished and spoiled by their hammers' ding-dong. 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN ORATOR. t 177 

He offered each Vulcan to purchase his shop ; 
But, no ! they were stubborn, determined to stop : 
At length (both his spirits and health to improve) 
He cried, " I'll give each fifty guineas to move." 

u Agreed !" said the pair ; "that will make us amends." 
u Then come to my house and let us part friends : 
You shall dine ; and we'll drink on this joyful occasion, 
That each may live long in his new habitation." 

He gave the two blacksmiths a sumptuous regale — 
He spared not provisions, his wine, nor his ale ; 
So much was he pleased with the thought that each guest 
Would take from him noise, and restore him to rest. 

" And now," said he, " tell me, where mean you to move— 
I hope to some spot where your trade will improve ?" 
" Why, sir," replied one, with a grin on his phiz, 
" Tom Forge moves to my shop, and I move to his !" 



CXLVII. 

HOPE.— Campbell. 



At summer's eve, when heaven's aerial bow 
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, 
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, 
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ? 
Why do those hills of shadowy tint appear 
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ? 
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
And robes the mountain with its azure hue. 
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey 
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way ; 
Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene 
More pleasing seems than all the past has been, 
And every form that fancy can repair 
From dark oblivion glows divinely there. 
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye 
To pierce the shades of dim futurity ? 



178 sterling's southern orator. 

Can wisdom lend, with all her boasted power, 
The pledge of joy's anticipated hour ? 
Or if she holds an image to the view, 
'Tis nature pictured too severely true. 
With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light 
That pours remotest rapture on the sight ; 
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way, 
That calls each slumbering passion into play. 
Eternal Hope ! when yonder spheres sublime 
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time, 
Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade. 
When all the sister planets have decayed — 
When, wrapped in fire, the realms of ether glow, 
And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below — 
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile, 
And light thy torch by nature's funeral pile. 



CXLVIII. 

THE BEREFT.— Mary A. Miller. 

Thy bitter 
Cup sure now is full, O stricken one ! 
" Not yet, not yet, chastened and much beloved 
By Him who ever puts it to thy lips !" 
One heart through all had suffered with her own. 
On him she leaned her weary throbbing head, 
And he would gently soothe — stilling the tumult 
In his breast lest it might add to hers. Oh, 
How sweet a thing it is for woman's heart 
To trust ! To feel that one there is who loves 
Her for her very weakness ; whose strength supports 
In every hour of need. How like a plant 
Torn rudely from its long accustomed stay, 
Her heart will lie in dust, refusing still 
All other props when he is gone. The cold 
White tapering shaft by which she stands and leans 
Her aching temples now will tell you all, 
More than her tongue in such an hour as this 
Could tell. And near her is that new-made grave, 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 179 

Which but a little while before into 
Its faithful charge received the fairest flower, 
That ever bloomed to die ! O Fanny, loved 
And lost ! e'en now I see thee as thou wert, 
When last I gazed upon thy face. The dark, 
Rich shining folds of soft brown hair fell o'er 
Thy pillow then, and cast a shadow soft, 
Upon a brow as Parian marble white. 
And just as I have seen some autumn flower, 
Touched by wintry frost, grow fairer in 
Its early doom and fall in brighter hues 
Than those it wore at first, so Fanny passed 
Away. Upon her cheek the hectic rose 
Brightened each day until its crimson leaves 
Fell softly in an early grave. 

And I 
Had thought to see her, trembling, shrink whene'er 
The hour of parting came. For how, oh, how 
Could one so young, guarded with such care, such 
Tenderness and love, unflinching meet 
The King of Terrors ! Weak was my judgment ; 
Her faith I did not know ; for, with a smile 
Which told of joy ecstatic, she gently 
Breathed "All, all is peace !" and died. 



CXLIX. 
HONOR TO OUR WORKMEN.— H. Clay Preuss. 

Whom shall we call our heroes, 

To whom our praises sing ? 
The pampered child of fortune 

The titled lord or king ? 
They live by others' labor, 

Take all and nothing give : 
The noblest types of manhood 

Are they who work to live. 

Who spans the earth with iron, 
And rears the palace dome ? 



180 sterling's soutpiern orator. 

Who fashions for the rich man 
The comforts of his home ? 

It is the patient toiler — 
All honor to him, then ! 

The true wealth of a nation 
Is in her working-men. 

For many barren ages 

Earth hid her treasures deep, 
And all her giant forces 

Seemed bound as in a sleep ; 
Then Labor's "anvil chorus" 

Broke on the startled air, 
And lo ! the earth in rapture 

Laid all her riches bare ! 

3 Tis toil that over nature 

Gives man his proud control ; 
And purifies and hallows 

The temple of his soul ; 
It scatters foul diseases, 

With all their ghastly train, 
Puts iron in the muscle, 

And crystal in the brain. 

The Grand Almighty Builder, 

Who fashioned out the earth, 
Hath stamped His seal of honor 

On Labor from her birth. 
In every angel flower 

That blossoms from the sod, 
Behold the master touches, 

The handiwork of God ! 

Then, honor to our workmen, 
Our hardy sons of toil — 

The heroes of the workshop 
And monarchs of the soil. 



sterling's southern orator. 181 

CL. 

AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY.— J. G. Saxe. 

Of all the notable things on earth, 
The queerest one is pride of birth 

Among our " fierce democracy !" 
A bridge across a hundred years, 
Without a prop to save it from sneers, 
Not even a couple of rotten peers — 
A thing for laughter, fleers and jeers, 

Is American aristocracy ! 

English and Irish, French and Spanish, 
Germans, Italians, Dutch, and Danish, 
Crossing their veins until they vanish 

In one conglomeration ! 
So subtle % tinge of blood, indeed, 
No Heraldry Harvey will ever succeed 

In finding the circulation. 

Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, 
Your family thread you can't ascend, 
Without good reason to apprehend 
You may find it waxed at the other end 

By some plebeian vocation ! 
Or, worse than that, your boasted line 
May end in a loop of stronger twine, 

That plagued some worthy relation ! 



CLI. 
THE SUNNY SOUTH— THE LAND WE LOVE. 

The sunny South ! the sunny South ! 

The land that gave us birth ; 
Where brightest hopes have cheered our youth- 

The land of generous worth. 



182 sterling's southern orator. 

The sunny South ! though cast in gloom, 
Still land of beauteous flowers, 

Exhaling fragrance o'er our doom 
With sweet, refreshing powers. 

The sunny South ! now almost mute. 
Still land of precious store, 

Where nature yields her choicest fruit 
With sweetness crimsoned o'er. 

The sunny South ! awake ! awake ! 

Rise, like your mountains, rise ! 
The birds sing sweetly for your sake, 

Beneath bright, genial skies. 

The sunny South ! be high your aim — 

Adorn your golden prime ; 
Unconquered minds you still may claim, 

And make your lives sublime 

The sunny South! heroic, grancf! 

Where high-souled men did dare 
To bleed and die ! — a noble band — 

For home, and for the fair. 

The sunny South ! let virtues blend 

In thee all lands above ; 
Then God propitious smiles will lend, 

And bless the land we love. 



OLII. 

THE LITTLE BOY THAT DIED.—Joshua H. Robinson. 

I am all alone in my chamber now, 

And the midnight hour is near, 
And the fagot's crack and the clock's dull tick 

Are the only sounds I hear ; 
And over my soul, in its solitude, 

Sweet feelings of sadness glide ; 
For my heart and my eyes are full when I think 

Of the little boy that died. 



sterling's southern orator. 183 

I went one night to my father'^ house — 

Went home to the dear ones all, 
And softly I opened the garden gate, 

And softly the door of the hall. 
My mother came out to meet her son, 

She kissed me, and than she sighed, 
And her head fell on my neck, and she wept 

For the little boy that died. 

And when I gazed on his innocent face, 

As still and cold he lay, 
And thought what a lovely child he had been, 

And how soon he must decay : 
u O death, thou lovest the beautiful," 

In the woe of my spirit I cried ; 
For the sparkling eyes and the forehead were fair 

Of the little boy that died ! 

Again I will go to my father's house, 

Go home to the dear ones all, 
And sadly I'll open the garden gate, 

And sadly the door of the hall : 
I shall meet my mother, but never more 

With her darling by her side ; 
But she'll kiss me and sigh and weep again 

For the little boy that died. 

I shall miss him when the flowers come 

In the garden where he played ; 
I shall miss him more by the fireside, 

When the flowers have all decayed ; 
I shall see his toys and his empty chair, 

And the horse he used to ride ; 
And they will speak with a silent speech, 

Of the little boy that died. 

I shall see his little sister again, 

With her playmates about the door, 
And I'll watch the children in their sports 

As I never did before ; 
And if in the group I see a child 

That's dimple and laughing-eyed, 
I'll look to see if it may not be 

The little boy that died. 



181 sterling's southern orator. 

We shall all go home to our Father's house — 

To our Father's house in the skies, 
Where the hope of our souls shall have no blight, 

And our love no broken ties ; 
We shall roam on the banks of the River of Peace, 

And bathe in its blissful tide ; 
And one of the joys of our heaven shall be 

The little boy that died. 

And therefore, when I am sitting alone, 

And the midnight hour is near, 
When the fagot's crack and the clock's dull tick 

Are the only sounds I hear, 
Oh, sweet o'er my soul in its solitude 

Are the feelings of sadness that glide, 
Though my heart and my eyes are full when I think 

Of the little boy that died. 



CLIII. 

THE DEATH OF WABREK— Epes Sabgent. 

When the war-cry of liberty rang through the land, 

To arms sprang our fathers the foe to withstand ; 

On old Bunker Hill their intrenchments they rear, 

When the army is joined by a young volunteer. 

" Tempt not death !" cried his friends ; but he bade them 

good-by, 
Saying, " Oh, it is sweet for our country to die !" 

The tempest of battle now rages and swells, 
'Mid the thunder of cannon, the pealing of bells ; 
And a light, not of battle, illumes yonder spire — 
Scene of woe and destruction ; — 'tis Charlestown on fire ! 
The young volunteer heedeth not the sad cry, 
But murmurs, " 'Tis sweet for our country to die !" 

With trumpets and banners the foe draweth near ; 

A volley of musketry checks their career ! 

With the dead and the dying the hill-side is strewn, 

And the shout through our lines is, " The day is our own !" 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 185 

" Not yet," cries the young volunteer, " do they fly ! 
Stand Arm ! — it is sweet for our country to die !" 

Now our powder is spent, and they rally again ; 

" Retreat," says our chief, " since unarmed we remain !" 

But the young volunteer lingers yet on the field, 

Reluctant to fly, and disdaining to yield. 

A shot ! Ah ! he falls ! but his life's latest sigh 

Is, " "lis sweet, oh, 'tis sweet for our country to die !" 

And thus Warren fell ! Happy death ! noble fall ! 
To perish for country at Liberty's call ! 
Should the flag of invasion profane evermore 
The blue of our seas or the green of our shore, 
May the hearts of our people reecho the cry, 
" 'Tis sweet, oh, 'tis sweet for our country to die I" 



CIiIV. 
ROBERT EMMET.— Akonymous. 



Oh, cold is the grave where he silently slumbers, 

Where naught but the wild bird his requiem sings ; 
There sad let the minstrel-boy breathe the wild numbers 

Of grief o'er the plaintive harp's sorrowing things. 
Calm, calm is his sleep, and unsullied his glory, 

In the shade of the laurels his martyrdom won, 
And long let his name be emblazoned in story — 

Green Isle of the ocean ? thy patriot son. 

Oh, sweet be his rest, while in sorrow we wail him, 

And mourn o'er his fate in our tremulous songs ! 
Green Erin ! oh, soft let thy bards proudly hail him 

As the hero who bled for thy desolate wrongs ! 
Twine, twine the sad harp with cypress and willow, 

That shade, with their foliage, his mouldering urn, 
Bedewed with the tear-drops that bathe his cold pillow, 

Where sleep the lone relics of him whom we mourn. 

With naught but the verdure that decks his cold bosom, 
And springs through the damp sod that covers his breast, 



186 sterling's southern orator. 

Or the fragrant perfume of the wild heather blossom, 
In the blaze of his glory, oh, there let him rest ! 

But his spirit has fled to a happier heaven — 

Where the bright shades of heroes meet never to part : 

Oh, write not his epitaph — let it be graven 
By gratitude deep on each patriot heart. 

Sweet harp of my country ! let thy sorrowing numbers 

Breathe o'er the cold grave of him whom we weep, 
And hallow with music the spot where he slumbers, 

And wake the wild anthem of grief o'er his sleep. 
Then- calm be his rest — let him dwell in his glory, 

In the shade of the laurels his martyrdom won! 
Oh, long shall his name be recorded in story, 

Green Island of song, as thy patriot son ! 



CLV. 

HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS.— N. P. Willis. 

He gave to her the water and the bread, 
But spoke no word, and trusted not himself 
To look upon her face ; but laid his hand, 
In silent blessing, on the fair-haired boy, 
And left her to her lot of loneliness. 

Should Hagar weep ? May slighted woman turn, 
And, as a vine the oak hath shaken off*, 
Bend lightly to her tendencies again ? 
Oh, no ! by all her loveliness, by all 
That makes life poetry and beauty, no 
Make her a slave ; steal from her cheek the rose, 
By needless jealousies ; let the last star 
Leave her a watcher by your couch of pain ; 
Wrong her by petulance, suspicion, all 
That makes her cup of bitterness — yet give 
One evidence of love, and earth has not 
An emblem of devotedness like hers. 
But, oh, estrange her once, it boots not how, 
By wrong or silence, any thing that tells 
A change has come upon your tenderness — 



sterling's southern orator. 187 

And there is not a high thing out of heaven 
Her pride o'ermastereth not. 

She went her way with a strong step and slow ; 
Her pressed lip arched, and her clear eye undimmed, 
As it had been a diamond, and her form 
Borne proudly up, as if her heart breathed through. 
Her child kept on in silence, though she pressed 
His hand till it was pained ; for he had caught. 
As I have sai<J, her spirit, and the seed 
Of a stern nation had been breathed upon. 

The morning past, and Asia's sun rode up 
In the clear heaven, and every beam was heat, 
The cattle of the hills were in the shade, 
And the bright plumage of the Orient lay 
On beating bosoms in her spicy trees. 
It was an hour of rest ; but Hagar found 
No shelter in the wilderness, and on 
She kept her weary way, until the boy 
Hung down his head, and opened his parched lips 
For water ; but she could not give it him. 
She laid him down beneath the sultry sky — 
For it was better than the close, hot breath 
Of the thick pines — and tried to comfort him; 
For he was sore athirst, and his blue eyes 
Were dim and bloodshot, and he could not know 
Why God denied him water in the wild. 
She sat a little longer, and he grew 
Ghastly and faint, as if he would have died. 
It was too much for her. She lifted him, 
And bore him further on, and laid his head 
Beneath the shadow of a desert shrub ; 
And, shrouding up her face, she went away, 
And sat to watch, where he could see her not, 
Till he should die ; and, watching him, she mourned. 



188 sterling's southern orator. 

CLVI. 

THE TWO ROBBERS.— Axkist. 

Scene.— Alexander the Great, in his tent — Guards— A man with a fierce countenance, 
chained and fettered, brought before him. 

Alexander. What, art thou the Thracian robber, of whose 
exploits I have heard so much ? 

Robber. I am a Thracian, and a soldier. 

Alex. A soldier! — a thief, a plunderer, an 'assassin! the 
pest of the country ! I could honor thy courage, but I must 
detest and punish thy crimes. 

Hob. What have I done of which you can complain ? 

Alex. Hast thou not set at defiance my authority, violated 
the public peace, and passed thy life in- injuring the persons 
and properties of thy fellow-subjects ? 

Mob. Alexander ! I am your captive — I must hear what 
you please to say, and endure what you please to inflict. 
But my soul is unconquered ; and if I reply at all to your 
reproaches, I will reply like a free man. 

Alex. Speak freely. Far be it from me to take the ad- 
vantage of my power to silence those with whom I deign to 
converse. 

Hob. I must then answer your question by another. 
How have you passed your life ? 

Alex. Like a hero. Ask Fame, and she will tell you. 
Among the brave I have been the bravest ; among sover- 
eigns, the noblest ; among conquerors, the mightiest. 

Hob. And does not Fame speak of me, too ? Was there 
ever a bolder captain of a more valiant band ? Was there 
ever — but I scorn to boast. You yourself know that I have 
not been easily subdued. 

Alex. Still, what are you but a robber — a base, dishonest 
robber ? 

Hob. And what is a conqueror? Have not you, too, gone 
about the earth like an evil genius, blasting the fair fruits 
of peace and industry ; — plundering, ravaging, killing, with- 
out law, without justice, merely to gratify an insatiable lust 
for dominion ? All that I have done to a single district 
with a hundred followers, you have done to whole nations 
with a hundred thousand. If I have stripped individuals, 
you have ruined kings and princes. If I have burned a few 



STERLINGS SOUTHERN ORATOR. 189 

hamlets, you have desolated the most flourishing kingdoms 
and cities of the earth. What is then the difference, but 
that, as you were born a king, and I a private man, you 
have been able to become a mightier robber than I ? 

Alex. But if I have taken like a king, I have given like a 
king. If I have subverted empires, I have founded greater. 
I have cherished arts, commerce, and philosophy. 

Rob. I, too, have freely given to the poor what I took 
from the rich. I have established order and discipline 
among the most ferocious of mankind ; and have stretched 
out my protecting arm over the oppressed. I know, indeed, 
little of the philosophy you talk of; but I believe neither 
you nor I will ever repay the world the mischiefs we have 
done it. 

Alex. Leave me— take off his chains, and use him well. 
[Exit Pobber.] Are we then so much alike ? — Alexander 
to a robber ? — Let me reflect. 



CIiVH, 
LOVEGfOLD AND JAMES.— Fielding. 

Lovegold alone. — Enter James, 

Lovegold. Where have you been ? I have wanted you 
above an hour. 

James. Whom do you want, sir, your coachman or your 
cook ? for I am both one and the other. 

Love. I want my cook. 

James. I thought, indeed, it was not your coachman ; for 
you have had no great occasion for him since your last pair 
of horses were starved ; but your cook, sir, shall wait upon 
you in an instant. [Puts off his coachman* s great-coat, and 
appears as a cooJc.] Now, sir, I am ready for your com- 
mands. 

Love. I am engaged this evening to give a supper. 

James. A supper, sir ! I have not heard the word this 
half-year ; a dinner, indeed, now and then ; but for a supper, 
I am almost afraid, for want of practice — my hand is out. 

^ Love. Leave off your saucy jesting, and see that you pro- 
vide a good supper. 



190 sterling's southern orator, 

James. That may be done with a great deal of money, sir. 

Love. Is the mischief in you ? Always money ! Can 
you say nothing else but money, inoney, money f My 
children, my servants, my relatives, can pronounce nothing 
but rnoney. 

James. Well, sir ; but how many will there be at table ? 

Love. About eight or ten ; but I will have a supper 
dressed but for eight ; for, if there be enough for eight, 
there is enough for ten. 

James. Suppose, sir, at one end, a handsome soup ; at 
the other, a fine Westphalia ham and chickens ; on one side, 
a fillet of veal ; on the other, a turkey, or rather a bustard, 
which may be had for about a guinea — 

Love. Zounds ! is the fellow providing an entertainment 
for my lord mayor and the court of aldermen ? 

James. Then a ragout — 

Love. I'll have no ragout. Would you burst the good 
people ? 

James. Then pray, sir, say what will you have ? 

Love* Why, see and provide something to cloy their 
stomachs : let there be two good dishes of soup, maigre ; 
a large suet-pudding ; some dainty fat pork-pie, very fat ; 
a fine small lean breast of mutton, and a large dish with 
two artichokes. There ; that's plenty and variety. 

James. Oh, dear — 

Love. Plenty and variety. 

James. But, sir, you must have some poultry. 

Love. No ; I'll have none. 

James. Indeed, sir, you should. 

Love. Well, then, kill the old hen ; for she has done lay- 

James. Mercy ! sir, how the folks will talk of it ; indeed, 
people say enough of you already. 

Love. Eh ! why, what do the people say, pray ? 

James. Ah, sir, if I could be assured you would not be 
angry. 

Love. Not at all ; for I am always glad to hear what the 
world says of me. 

James. Why, sir, since you will have it then, they make 
a jest of you everywhere ; nay, of your servants, on your ac- 
count. One says, you pick a quarrel with them quarterly, 
in order to find an excuse to pay them no wages. 

Love. Poh ! poh ! 



sterling's southern orator. 191 

James. Another says, you were taken one night stealing 
your own oats from your own horses. 

Love. That must be a lie ; for I never allow them any. 

James. In a word, you are the by-word everywhere ; and 
you are never mentioned but by the names of covetous, 
stingy, scraping, old — 

Love. Get along, you impudent villain ! 

James. Nay, sir, you said you would not be angry. 

Love. Get out, you dog ! you — 



CLVIII. 

THE MONSTER OF MANY NAMES.— Anonymous. 

Charles. I have heard it said, William, that our lan- 
guage is, of all others, the most difficult for foreigners to 
learn. Can you account for it ? 

William. I cannot, indeed, unless it is because there are so 
many words which signify the same thing. For instance, 
when a fellow feels a little out of sorts, and thinks it is be- 
cause he is dry, he goes to the store and calls for his " bit- 
ters," "black strap," " sling," "four o'clock," etc.; the 
liquor-sellers all understand him, — he wants some strong 
drink. 

Chas. You are right; but the terms you mention are 
rather out of date, I believe. They have got an entire new 
list of names for that thing nowadays. But this only in- 
creases the difficulty I referred to. 

Wil. Yes ; and some of them are very appropriate. 

Chas. Some, I think, call it Samson. 

Wil. Samson ! I suppose that's because it's so strong ; is 
it not ? 

Chas. Yes ; but that is not the only reason. Samson, 
you know, deceived the people about his strength, and it 
was a long while before they found out where it lay. Be- 
sides this, Samson was a great man-slayer ; but where Sam- 
son slew his thousands, strong drink has slain its tens of 
thousands. 

Wil. I have heard of a certain Quaker who called it 
Pharaoh ; for I perceive, said he, it will not let the people 
go. 



192 sterling's southern orator. 

Chas. You remind me of a sailor I saw the other day. 
Jack was already "half seas over," when he went into 
Smith's and called for an ounce of old tangle-legs. Thinks 
I, What is that ? So I kept my eye on the scales ; but 
Smith understood him ; so he gave him a glass, you see, 
and off he went. But, dear me, I guess it was tangle-legs ! 
First he went this way, and then that, zigzag, like a Virginia 
fence, till his legs got into a complete tangle, and down he 
went. 

Wil. You see old Pharaoh had got hold of him, and by 
tangling his legs he wouldn't let him go. But that's not 
the worst of it ; go home with that fellow, if he's got any, 
and you'll find every thing else in a tangle. I guess you 
don't catch me in that snarl. 

Chas. They say the travelling community call it oats. 
Is that true ? 

Wil. Oats! what, for men? I guess they wet them, 
then. 

Chas. Why, I know of a store that's got no other sign 
but " Oats for horses." But mind you, they don't mean 
four-legged horses ; for every body knows that they are not 
very partial to oats from the wine measure. 

Wil. Ah, I know what store you mean. I was down 
there the other day, and saw this all acted out. A young 
sort of a buck came driving up, all of a lather, jumped out 
of his gig, and said he must have some oats to help him over 
the hill. The old mare — she called, too. But he replied, 
"Hold your tongue, there; there's nothing here for you; 
it is my turn, now." So I watched him ; and, thinks I, I 
guess you'll not go any faster for such oats as these. But I 
was mistaken. Crack went the whip, and away flew the 
poor creature, over hill and dale, like a sheet of lightning. 

Chas. Well, William, so much for the oats ; now, did you 
ever hear this thing called pig ? 

Wil. Pig ! pig ! I have heard of the striped pig affair, 
out there at old Dedham. But I guess they little thought, 
when they made choice of that word, how appropriate it 
was ; for this liquor business, you know, is rather a swinish 
concern throughout. 

Chas. I ask your pardon. Who ever heard of a drunken 
hog ? I am inclined to believe it a base imposition on the 
pig community. What do you think? 

Wil. Well, I guess they think something so, for, when 



sterling's southern orator. 193 

Uncle Jim went out to feed his hogs last night, he under- 
took to clean the trough a little, you know ; but he lost his 
balance, (his legs being a little tangled about this time of 
day,) and over he went, without ceremony, into Madame 
Piggy's dining-room. To excuse his rudeness, he exclaim- 
ed, " Don't you be concerned ; I am as good as the best of 
you." To w^hich the whole family replied, " Doubted ! 
doubted !" and away they scampered. 

Chcts. To conclude, William, did you ever hear the thing 
called hardware ? 

Wil. Hardware ! Yes ; and true enough it is hard, all 
hard, and nothing but hard. It is hard for the consumer, 
hard for the vender, hard for the neighborhood, town, coun- 
ty, and State. And he that can deal in such a kind of hard- 
ware as this must be a hard, hard customer. And, if I am 
not mistaken, he gives every worthy person occasion to 
think hard of him; more especially the poor drunkard's 
household, where nothing is so plenty as hard looks, hard 
knocks, and hard, hard times. 



CLIX. 
GESSLER AND WILLIAM TELL.— J. S. Knowles. 

Gessler. Why speak'st thou not 

Tell. For wonder. 

Ges. Wonder? 

Tell. Yes, that thou should'st seem a man. 

Ges. What should I seem ? 

Tell. A monster ! 

Ges. Ha ! Beware : — think on thy chains. 

Tell. Though they were doubled, and did weigh me down 
Prostrate to earth, methinks I could rise up 
Erect, with nothing but the honest pride 
Of telling thee, usurper, to the teeth, 
Thou art a monster ! Think upon my chains ! 
Show me the link of them, which, could it speak, 
Would give evidence against my word. 
Think on my chains ! Think on my chains ! 
How came they on me ? 

Ges. Darest thou question me ? 



194 sterling's southern orator. 

Tell. Barest thou not answer ? 

Ges. Do I hear ? 

Tell. Thou dost. 

Ges. Beware my vengeance ! 

Tell. Can it more than kill ? 

Ges. Enough — it can do that. 

Tell. No — not enough : 
It cannot take away the grace of life, 
Its comeliness of look that virtue gives, 
Its port erect with consciousness of truth, 
Its rich attire of honorable deeds, 
Its fair report, that's rife on good men's tongues ; 
It cannot lay its hands on these no more 
Than it can pluck his brightness from the sun, 
Or, with polluted finger, tarnish it. 

Ges. But it can make thee "writhe. 

Tell. It may. 

Ges. And groan. 

Tell. It may ; and I may cry 
Go on, though it should make me groan again. 

Ges. Whence comest thou ? 

Tell. From the mountains. Would'st thou learn 
What news from them ? 

Ges. Canst tell me any ? 

Tell. Ay : they watch no more the avalanche. 

Ges. Why so ? 

Tell. Because they look for thee. The hurricane 
Comes unawares upon them ; from its bed 
The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track. 

Ges. What do they then ? 

Tell. Thank Heaven it is not thou! 
Thou hast perverted nature in them. The earth 
Presents her fruits to them, and is not thanked ; 
The harvest sun is constant, they scarce 
Return his smile ; their flocks and herds increase, 
And they look on as men who count a loss. 
They hear of thriving children born to them, 
And never shake the teller by the hand ; 
While those they have, they see grow up and flourish, 
And think as little of caressing them 
As they were things a deadly plague had smit. 
There's not a blessing heaven vouchsafes them, but 
The thought of thee doth wither to a curse, 



sterling's southern orator. 195 

As something they must lose, and richer were 
To lack. 

Ges. That's right ! I'd have them like their hills, 
That never smile, though wanton summer tempt 
Them e'er so much. 

Tell. But they do sometimes smile. 

Ges. Ay ! When is that ? 

Tell. When they do talk of vengeance. 

Ges. Vengeance ! Dare 
They talk of that ? 

Tell. Ay, and expect it, too. 

Ges. From whence ? 

Tell. From heaven ! 

Ges. From heaven ? 

Tell. And the true hearts 
Are lifted up to it, on every hill, 
For justice on thee. 



CLX. 

THE PERUVIAN SOLDIER— R. B. Sheridan. 

Pizarro, Datillo, Gomez, Spaniards, and Orozembo, a Peruvian prisoner.— Enter Gomez. 

Pizarro. How ! Gomez, what bringest thou ? 

Gomez. On yonder hill, among the palm trees, we have 
surprised an old Peruvian. Escape by flight he could not, 
and we seized him and his attendant unresisting : yet his 
lips breathe nothing but bitterness and scorn. 

Piz. Drag him before us. ( Gomez leads in Orozembo.) 
What art thou, stranger ? 

Orozembo. First tell me which among you is the captain 
of this band of robbers. 

Piz. Audacious ! This insolence has sealed thy doom. 
Die thou shalt, gray-headed ruffian. But first confess what 
thou knowest. 

Oro. I know that which thou hast just assured me of— 
that I shall die. 

Piz. Less audacity, perhaps, might have preserved thy life. 

Oro. My life is as a withered tree;. it is not worth pre- 
serving. 

Piz. Hear me, old man. Even now we march against the 



196 sterling's southern orator. 

Peruvian army. We know there is a secret path that leads 
to your stronghold among the rocks : guide us to that, and 
name your reward. If wealth be thy wish — 

Oro. Ha! ha! ha! ha! 

Piz. Dost thou despise my offer ? 

Oro. Thee, and thy offer ! Wealth ! I have the wealth 
of two, dear, gallant sons ; I have stored in heaven the riches 
which repay good actions here ; and, still, my chief treasure 
I do bear about me. 

Piz. What is that ? Inform me. 

Oro. I will ; for it never can be thine : the treasure of a 
pure, unsullied conscience. 

Piz. I believe there is no other Peruvian dares speak as 
thou dost. 

Oro. Would I could believe there is no other Spaniard 
who dares act, as thou dost. 

Gom. Obdurate pagan ! How numerous is your army ? 

Oro. Count the leaves of yonder forest. 

Piz. Which is the weakest part of your camp? 

Oro. It has no weak part \ on every side 'tis fortified by 
truth and justice. 

Piz. Where have you concealed your wives and your 
children ? 

Oro. In the hearts of their husbands and their fathers. 

Piz. Knowest thou Alonzo ? 

Oro. Know him ! Alonzo? Know him? Our nation's 
benefactor ? The guardian angel of Peru? 

Piz. By what has he merited that title ? 

Oro. By not resembling thee. 

Piz. Who is this Rolla, joined with Alonzo in command ? 

Oro. I will answer that ; for I love to hear and to repeat 
the hero's name. Rolla, the kinsman of the king, is the 
idol of our army ; in war, a tiger, chased by the hunters spear ; 
in peace, more gentle than the unweaned lamb. Cora was 
once betrothed to him ; but finding she perferred Alonzo, he 
resigned his claim, and,. I fear, his peace, to friendship, and 
to Cora's hapj)iness : yet still he loves her with a pure and 
holy fire. 

Piz. Romantic savage ! I shall meet this Rolla soon. 

Oro. Thou'dst better not ! The terror of his noble eye 
would strike thee dead. 

Dav. Silence, or tremble ! 



sterling's southern orator. 197 

Oro. Beardless robber! why should I tremble before 
man ? Why before thee, thou less than man ! 

Dav. Another word, audacious heathen, and I strike ! 

Oro. Strike, Christian ! Then boast among thy fellows — 
I, too, have murdered a Peruvian ! 

Dav. Death and vengeance seize thee ! (Stabs him.) 

Plz. Hold! 

Dav. Couldst thou longer have endured his insults ? 

Plz. And therefore should he die untortured ? 

Oro. True ! Observe, young man, thy unthinking rashness 
has saved me from the rack ; and thou thyself hast lost the 
opportunity of a useful lesson ; thou mightest thyself have 
seen with what cruelty vengeance would have inflicted tor- 
ments : and with what patience virtue would have borne 
them. 

Piz. Away ! Davillo ! if thus rash a second time — 

Dav. Forgive the hasty indignation which — 

Piz. No more — our guard and guides approach. Fol- 
low me, friends ! each shall have his post assigned, and ere 
Peruvia's God shall sink beneath the main, the Spanish 
banner, bathed in blood, shall float above the walls of 
vanquished Quito. 



CLXI. 

PURSUITS IN LIFE.— Z. B. Sturgus. 
Speakers — Six School Boys. 

Jim. How are you, Sam ? 

/Sam. Pretty well, for these hard times. 

Jim. Hard times! What do you know about hard times? 

Sam. A good deal, I can tell you; with old clothes to 
Avear, and not a cent to buy a stick of candy. But never 
mind, I am going to be a farmer, and have a pocket full of 
money. 

Jim. Well now, Sam, that sounds pretty well to a fellow 
that has never been on a farm. But I tell you, it don't pay. 
A farm makes a fellow sweat. I would rather be a doctor. 

Al. A doctor! What on earth would you or any one 
else want to be a doctor for ? At every body's call in all 



198 STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 

winds and weather. Just imagine yourself of a cold win- 
ter night safe in bed, when a thundering knock puts sleep 
to flight, and takes you miles in the country to see a sick 
baby. No, sir, you don't catch me at that job. I am 
going to be a carpenter. 

Jim. But, Al, you look only on the dark side of the 
question ; and even that is not so dark as you make out. 
A doctor has a good horse to ride, and don't ride for noth- 
ing. He gets paid for his visit and mileage besides. And 
besides that, you ought to remember that he probably cures 
the baby and gets the good- will of the parents. A man 
who took the census told me he found more children named 
after a doctor in this town than after any one else. Of 
course the parents liked him, or they would not have named 
their children after him. Besides, it sounds very well to be 
called a doctor. Doctor — [Here the speaker puts in his own 
name.] Hem ! 

Al. Well, be a doctor, if you want to, and have all the 
children in the country named after you. A mechanic's life- 
for me. He knows what he has to do and how to do it. 
Under his cunning hands, the stout trees of the forest are 
turned into stately edifices. He has a mind to plan, and 
skill to execute, and in this happy land, with honest indus- 
try, cannot fail to make a good living, and be esteemed as 
good as the best. 

Sam. Take care, Al. He may be as good as the best ; but 
as to being thought so, I am not so sure about that. Even 
in this country of equal rights, you will find some persons 
very polite to a doctor, but turning up their noses at a 
mechanic. 

John. Well, Al, who cares for a turned-up nose ? No 
person having a grain of sense will ever think less of a 
man because he earns his bread by the sweat of his brow. 
All labor is honorable. Idleness is disgraceful. Who 
would not be proud of a nod from the printer Franklin, or 
ia shake of the hand of the blacksmith Roger Sherman? 
I am going to be a bricklayer. You and I, Al, will build 
houses together ; and I have no doubt that, if upright and 
honorable, we shall not only be as good as the best, but be 
counted so too. 

Sam. I have no objection to your thinking so ; but one 
thing I do know, no one yet ever dared to sneer at a 
farmer. Are thev not the bones and sinews of the coun- 



sterling's southern orator. 199 

try ? And do not the office seekers love them dearly 
before the elections ? In the fall he sows his seed ; in the 
spring he plants his corn ; the gentle rain and glowing sun 
ripen his grain, and he reaps a bountiful harvest. True, 
occasionally his crops fail ; but even then a little money laid 
by for just such a case carries him safe through, till another 
harvest sets all right again. For his wheat, and corn, 
and hay, and cattle, and poultry, and butter, and eggs, 
there is always a market, and will be while the world rolls 
round. 

Jim. But I would a great deal rather be a doctor, and 
earn the money to buy these things than to raise them. 
Even these hard times we can get a pound of butter for a 
quarter, which a doctor w r ill make in two minutes by jerk- 
ing out a tooth. While to make a pound of butter, your 
wife has probably spent an hour in milking, straining, and 
churning. And for that cold ride in the night Al was 
grumbling about, the doctor got enough to keep him a 
week in clover. 

Sam. But, Jim, there are more doctors now than there is 
any need of ; and they do not all have their hands full of 
patients. And I have heard it said that if a boy is not 
smart enough for a lawyer, or good enough for a preacher, 
he will do first rate for a doctor. 

Wm. You will hardly think me modest, Sam, when I 
tell you I intend to be a lawyer, after your saying smart 
enough for a lawyer. But it seems to me there is more 
need of patient industry to insure success, in this or any 
other calling, than there is of any other quality. These 
smart fellows generally think they can become eminent 
without study. But with all their nimble smartness, they 
wake up and find that the dull, plodding fellows have the 
fees and the clients. The profession of the law is a noble 
one, if pursued with right views. The most eminent states- 
men of our country, and nearly all our presidents, have been 
lawyers. 

Sid. Well, boys, I have listened to all you have had to 
say ; but my mind is not changed a bit. I am bound to be 
a school-master. 

All together. A school-master ! Whew-w-w ! 

Sid. Well, whistle away, and when you are tired listen 
to reason. Who has half so good a time as a school- 
teacher ? He is safe in the house from summer's heat and 



200 sterling's southern orator. 

winter's cold. He has his regular hours of teaching each 
day, and the balance of his time to dispose of as he pleases ; 
his regular vacations, and then he never works on Saturday. 
Think of that ! Never work Saturday ! 

Al. But to think of being shut up six hours a day, five 
days in the week, with such a noisy, lazy, mischievous set 
of little rascals ! How does he stand it ? 

Sid. Oh, he takes things by the easy handle. Some he 
can lead ; others he must drive. He is a mechanic as well 
as the carpenter. Only he works on mind instead of mat- 
ter. And I shall try to build up my scholars into honor- 
able and useful citizens. 



PART II 



CLXII. 

POLITE LITERATURE.— Hon. James C. Dobbin 

Literature, Polite Literature ! What pencil can paint 
in too glowing and fascinating colors — in tints too delicate 
and pleasing — its bewitching loveliness, its heart-stirring 
charms, its refining, softening, elevating influences ? Who 
can borrow from its richest ornaments expressions of ade- 
quate force — figures of sufficient beauty — to illustrate to 
the young mind its genuine character ? Who is not even 
bewildered and embarrassed to attempt the selection of 
even specimen flowers in its vast field, decorated with clus- 
ters of every hue, and redolent with sweetest fragrance? 
Who is not confused with the throng of illustrious names 
that break upon the vision as he looks to mark out the 
choice spirits who have lent their genius to posterity for its 
entertainment and instruction ? And without recurring to 
remote periods, what educated mind has not feasted on the 
sumptuous repasts served up by literary epicures even in 
our own days ? And although the severe moralist, in his 
rigid scrutiny to " mark iniquity," may here and there find 
much to carp at, yet who hath not borrowed many a mo- 
ment of joy from the exquisite genius of Scott? Who hath 
not strolled with delight over the wild heath, and rugged 
cli, and along the quiet lake, and broken towers, and ivy- 
mantled castles — consecrated — touched with enchantment — 
by the magic wand of the wizard of the North ; — and felt 
that they were resting-places in our pilgrimage here below — 
where imagination could triumph awhile over memory, and 
chase away the remembrance of envyings, and bickerings, 
and jealousies, and check the workings of sordid cupidity 



202 sterling's southern orator. 

and ungenerous aims, that so often poison life's sweet mo- 
ments, and fling the blighting mildew on Hope's most cher- 
ished flowers? How oft have the sweeter sounds of his 
minstrel harp touched the heart of many a careworn victim 
of despondency and misfortune,tilJ by their melting cadence, 

" Tlie present scene, the future lot, 
His toils, his wants, were all forgot ; 
Cold diffidence and age's frost 
In the full tide of song were lost." 



CLXXII. 

INFLUENCE OF LOFTY THOUGHTS.— Gen. Albekt Pike. 

There were noble and brave deeds done by woman dur- 
ing our war of independence, that have exercised a greaten* 
influence on the destinies of the American people than all 
the legislation of a century. I have spoken elsewhere of 
Mrs. Motte, who supplied to Marion the arrows tipped with 
fire wherewith to burn down her own property occupied by 
the enemy. Should war ever again call on the youth of 
South-Carolina to rally to the support of the starry flag of 
our common country, that single act of devotion and hero- 
ism would exert more influence than all the legislation since 
the existence of our country commenced. And a noble 
thought or high sentiment uttered here may be mightier 
for a century to come than all the legislation of the Union 
or the victories of Napoleon. Such words and thoughts are 
the noblest estate of the people among which they are 
uttered. 

There are single passages in the writings of Daniel Web- 
ster that will exercise more influence upon the youth of 
America than all the statutes of this Union. There are 
songs written by men whose names are now forgotten that 
are more to the American people than a regiment of bayo- 
nets. " Let him who will make the laws of a nation, if I may 
may but make its songs," was well and truly said. The appa- 
rently trifling song of Lillibulero was the chief cause of the 
downfall of James II. How much influence do you imagine 
the songs of our own country are exerting ? Do you imagine 



stealing's southern orator. 203 

that we should make a profitable bargain, in case of a new 
war, by exchanging the song of Yankee Doodle for fifty thou- 
sand foreign soldiers led by a field marshal? This is a 
kind of property you cannot trade away with profit. You 
cannot profitably part with your lofty thoughts and noble 
sentiments any more than we can profitably part with our 
own souls. 

This kind of property we can create in this convention. 
You can utter noble thoughts, you can erect imperishable 
monuments, that shall live from age to age. It is the proud- 
est object of the human mind to utter a thought that shall 
live through all coming time. Mr. President, if this con- 
vention and its three predecessors shall succeed in uttering 
one single thought that shall live through all time, it will 
have amply repaid the labor of its members, and have 
given them the happy assurance that they have done some- 
thing for their country and their age. It has been said that 
a monument is the embodiment of a single lofty sentiment in 
marble. I would have this convention aid in building such 
a monument, not in marble, but in iron — an arm of iron ex- 
tending across the continent and clutching the Pacific in its 
grasp ; and when that monument is built, that embodiment of 
the great idea of the age, if some one standing near it while 
the commerce of the world goes rushing by him as on the 
wings of the wind, and after our bones have mouldered 
into dust, should say with truth that to this convention 
now assembled in New-Orleans that great work was in any 
degree owing, we should be amply repaid for all our labors 
in the cause of our country. 



CLXIV. 

CHRISTIANITY MORE THAN A PHILOSOPHY. 

Rev. B. M. Palmer, D.D. 

Remember that Christianity is not to be accepted sim- 
ply as a philosophy, explaining the otherwise insoluble 
problems of human life. If it were nothing more than this, 
the Bible would still deserve to be studied above all 
tomes of human wisdom under which our bookshelves 



204 sterling's southern orator. 

groan ; for it contains the utterances of divine wisdom. 
But the Gospel reveals not a philosophy which explains 
man's wants, but a religion which meets them. It pro- 
poses reconciliation with God through an atonement which 
satisfies all the requisitions of law ; and it renews and 
sanctifies the soul, fitting it for an eternal and blissful 
communion with its Maker in this world and in that which 
is to come. If in this aspect you accept it, you can only 
do so by an inward experience of its power. Let me im- 
press upon you this distinction. The Scriptures may be 
to you only the grove of Academus, and Jesus Christ but 
a diviner Socrates. 

Initiated in all the mysteries of its philosophy, you may 
wither and die whilst standing at the very fountain of 
life. Remember, I pray you, that, if Christ be a teacher, 
His are " the words of Eternal Life.'" You must touch the 
hem of His garment and be healed. You must be sprinkled 
with His blood, so as "to have no more conscience of 
sins." You must have fellowship with Him in His death 
and resurrection. You must experience the renewing and 
sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost; or, nominally 
Christian as you may be, you will sink from the very 
shadow of the Saviour's cross into eternal perdition. 
Young gentlemen, I speak these words in deep solemnity 
of soul. Through your partial kindness I am here to- 
night ; but I am here as a minister of God, to speak His 
words upon which the destiny of souls is suspended. This 
night has the kingdom of God come nigh unto you : and if 
you receive it not, I say unto you, it shall be more tolera- 
ble in that day for Sodom than for you. "If ye were 
blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, we see, 
therefore your sin remaineth." " But I hope better things 
of you, and things that accompany salvation, though 
I thus speak." " To God and to the Spirit of His grace 
I commend you." May His guardian providence shield you 
in this life from sorrow and from sin ! and may it be 
yours and mine to hear together the benediction of the 
last day, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world !" 






sterling's southern orator. 205 

CLXV. 
THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY.— Henry W. Miller. 

" The time will come," exclaims De Tocqueville with pro- 
phetic rapture, " when one hundred and fifty millions of 
men will be living in America, equal in condition, the prog- 
eny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, pre- 
serving the same civilization, the same language, the same 
literature, the same religion, the same habits, the same 
manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated 
under the same forms ! The rest is uncertain, but this is 
certain ; and it is a fact new to the world, a fact fraught 
with such portentous consequences as to baffle the efforts 
even of the imagination !" 

What a picture for the contemplation of the American 
scholar, statesman, and patriot ! And who does not desire, 
earnestly, ardently desire, its full, ample, complete realiza- 
tion ? Who amongst us is unwilling to labor for its ac- 
complishment ? Who would extinguish those high hopes 
that are rousing man in every quarter of the globe from the 
sleep of ages ? Who wishes to see that bright star which 
is guiding the empire of freedom, of science and civiliza- 
tion to the West, shoot from its position and go down in 
darkness ? 

If we hope to realize those high anticipations ; if we wish 
our descendants to enjoy the blessings which we now enjoy ; 
if we desire the fulfilment of the high destiny that is prom- 
ised us, we must defend, preserve, perpetuate, unimpaired, 
that constitution which has been transmitted to us. That 
only, under the blessing of God, can save us ! That founda- 
tion is of rock — all else is but drifting sand, to be swept 
away by the first storm of agitation ! When Roman liber- 
ty had been cloven down, and those who had defended it to 
the last were commanded to declare their adhesion to the 
tyrant who dealt the fatal blow, then it was that her immor- 
tal orator exclaimed : " I will not give to Cresar what be- 
longs to my country !" 

We cannot, we dare not surrender one jot or tittle of 
that constitution to the demands of sectional ambition or 
the mad behests of fanaticism ! It is that which lias made 
us what we are — a prosperous, happy, powerful people. 



208 sterling's southern orator. 

Under that, and by that, we are content to live. It will 
guide us to a still higher degree of national prosperity and 
glory. It will prove an impenetrable shield to our rights, 
our honor, our safety. But if — which heaven forbid ! — the 
dread conflict with faction and fanaticism must come, let us 
appeal to the example of the immortal Washington to 
inspire our hearts with patriotism to meet the crisis, and to 
the just God of our fathers to lead us through that conflict, 
and give us courage to face and fortitude to bear the dire- 
ful consequences which may follow ! 



CLXVI. 
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OP OUR FATHERS.— Dr. John Hill. 

Well have our predecessors borne their parts in the stir- 
ring drama. They have not folded their arms in ignoble 
ease, nor merited the invidious sneer of the witling. With 
manly firmness, resistless energy, and enthusiastic enter- 
prise, they have devoted themselves to the business of their 
day. From the savage and the wilderness they have won 
the loveliest domain that ever blest the industry of man, 
in soil fruitful as the gardens of the Hesperides, in climate 
varied as the universe. From a virgin soil, they have sup- 
plied the workshops and fed the poverty of Europe. They 
have fought the glorious battle of the Revolution, and, again, 
a war for national rights and honor. With roads and 
canals, the exemplars of the age, they have radiated and 
bound together their country, consulting at once the social 
convenience and political welfare of the people. They have 
set in motion a government the marvel and admiration of 
the world, whose basis is the virtue and intelligence of the 
people, whose end their happiness and improvement. Re- 
cognize this truth, then, that " knowledge is power," and 
religion its beacon light. 

" Think not that liberty 
From knowledge and religion e'er will dwell 
Apart, companions they 
Of heavenly seed connate." 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN"' ORATOR. 207 

Since the days of Bacon, the inestimable truth is fixed, 
that all things are subject to reason and discussion. The 
people are the keepers of our political treasures, yea, the 
solvers of the great problem of the fitness of man for self- 
government. They must not lack cultivation. Train, then, 
your own hearts and minds. Send the stream of Christian 
education leaping and laughing through the land. Bathe 
the souls of our entire population in its pure waters of 
knowledge, and you have crowned the works of your 
fathers, you have given perpetuity to their institutions, 
we are free forever, and you may well wear the unsullied 
honors of your sires. 



CIiXVII. 

THE MORAL ELEMENT IN LITERATURE. 

Rev. Geouge Howe, D.D. 

But, my young friends, there is another element of true 
and permanent literature, without which it must contin- 
ually be superseded, of which the majority of these heathen 
writers, and indeed the great burden of the modern au- 
thors, are destitute. I mean the moral and religious ele- 
ment. The writer and scholar entirely deficient here must 
eventually be superseded and his name be forgotten. Vol- 
taire fifty years ago reigned as king over the w T hole empire 
of learning. He gave laws to nearly the w T hole of literary 
Europe, and spake with authority to many even on these 
shores. His literature was various, his productions numer- 
ous and popular. But they lacked the moral element, and 
they have passed away. His name is no more honored, nor 
his memory revered even in France, which adored him. 
The professor w r ho a short time since quoted his authority 
to a Parisian audience, was hissed in indignation. And 
Byron, the gloomy, powerful genius who so filled men's 
minds and mouths a quarter of a century ago, is doomed 
to lose his hold upon the hearts of men, because he lacked 
this conservative element of literature and of society itself. 
So the all- wise Ruler has determined that the memory of the 
wicked shall rot. And in proportion as Christianity is dif- 



208 sterling's southern orator. 

fused through the world, and rises supreme over other forms 
of religious belief, will this moral element be the more 
demanded by society. The day is coming when the im- 
moral and licentious in literature will condemn it, for the 
knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters the 
sea. 



CLXVIII. 
THE WARNINGS OF HISTORY.— Anonymous. 

The past is secure. It is unalterable. The seal of eter- 
nity is upon it. The wisdom which it has displayed cannot 
be obscured ; neither can it be debased by human folly 
or human infirmity. The future is that which may well 
awaken the most earnest solicitude, both for the virtue and 
the permanence of our republic. The fate of other repub- 
lics, their rise, their progress, their decline, and their fall, 
are written but too legibly on the pages of history, if indeed 
they were not continually before us in the startling frag- 
ments of their ruins. 

They have perished,' and perished by their own hands. 
Prosperity enervated them, corruption debased them, and a 
venal populace consummated their destruction. They have 
sometimes been cheated out of their liberties by servile 
demagogues ; sometimes betrayed into a surrender of them 
by false patriots. They have disregarded the warning 
voice of their best statesmen, and have persecuted and 
driven from office their best friends. They have reverenced 
power more in its high abuses and summary movements 
than in its calm and constitutional energy. They have sur- 
rendered to faction what belonged to the country. Pat- 
ronage and party, the triumph of a leader, and the discon- 
tents of a day have outweighed all solid principles and in- ' 
stitutions of government. 

Such are the melancholy lessons of the past history of 
the republics down to our own. Let the history of the 
Grecian and Italian states warn us of our danger. Let the 
American youth never forget that they possess a noble in- 
heritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of 
their ancestors, and capable, if wisely improved and faith- 
fully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all 



sterling's southern orator. 209 

the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of 
liberty, property, religion, and independence. The struc- 
ture has been erected by architects of consummate skill and 
fidelity ; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order ; 
its foundations solid, and its defences are impregnable from 
without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work 
of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, neverthe- 
less, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negli- 
gence of its only keepers. 

Republics are created by the virtue, public .spirit, and in- 
telligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are 
banished from the public councils because they dare to be 
honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter 
the people in order to betray them. 



CLXIX. 
NATIONAL JUSTICE.— B. F. Moore. 

It was a remark of Chesterfield, that the king ought to 
be the first gentleman of the realm : and I will add, that 
the justice of a nation should never be surpassed by the 
highest justice of the purest citizen. As a great moral 
person, it should be the standard of excellence, raised 
above the approach of mere passion and interest — a ma- 
jesty whose diadem should sparkle with the jewels of its 
virtues. " Our country, may she always be right ; but our 
country, right or wrong," was the sentiment of a noble and 
gallant hero of our land. Understood correctly, it is 
equally true, patriotic, and beautiful. With an admission 
that she may be wrong, comes the earnest and emphatic 
prayer that she " may be right" — a feeling entreaty that 
she would carefully and conscientiously examine the ground 
she might take, accompanied with a decided announcement 
of devotion to her position, whatever it might be, when by 
her councils she had determined it. It is a beautiful abridg- 
ment of the national compact. 

Simple as is the sentiment, I doubt whether one has been 
more frequently perverted to rebuke the freedom of inquiry 
and stifle the candid expression of a sense of national 
justice. Properly understood, it applies equally to the 



210 stekling's southebn orator. 

statesman who is deliberating on national claims disputed, 
and to the soldier called to defend national rights decided. 
Yet, in the eager haste of some, it is ripe for application 
the moment a pretension is advanced ; who, disdaining all 
inquiry of the right, reject the first half of the expression, 
* and call up the chivalry of the land and marshal it, straight- 
way, upon a claim undetermined, u for our country, right or 
wrong." There cannot be perpetrated a more glaring in- 
justice on the brave man who uttered the sentiment than 
thus to mutilate it. The high-toned soul of the sensitive 
and lamented Decatur would rather have met every foe of 
his country in battle, than encountered so foul a slander 
upon his sense of justice from his countrymen. 

Never had a people so deep an interest in the cultivation 
of a due sense of national justice as those of these con- 
federated States. Each, occupying the position, in many 
respects, of a nation, presents, continually, conflicts of in- 
terest, institutions, and laws, not only with her neighbor, 
but with the General Government itself. Each, proud of 
its individuality and sensitive of its honor, having rights to 
demand and obligations to fulfil, a high sense of justice 
only, and an habitual observance of it at all times, can 
secure that union in which are lodged both independence 
and liberty. Upon this generation rests, and on every sub- 
sequent generation will rest, the preservation of that con- 
cord whose life is justice, whose fruit is a nation's happiness, 
and whose trophies, the magnificent monuments of peace. 



CLXX. 

THE HIGHEST KNOWLEDGE.— Alexander H. Sands 

But a truce to further discussion of this kind. I began 
by telling you of the delights of knowledge. It is the chief 
aim of our existence to knov\ My language is not un- 
guarded. I mean what I say. Take, however, into your 
mental view, in ascertaining the delights of knowledge, the 
interests and endowments of two worlds ; and you will ac- 
knowledge it true. For perfect happiness, unquestionably, 
nothing save infinity will suffice. No merely temporal 
exaltation, however high ; no transitory sensation of pleas- 



STEALING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 211 

ure, however thrilling ; no present attainments of the mind, 
however grand and magnificent, will meet and fully gratify 
the immortal thirstings of an immortal spirit. You need 
an object of contemplation and study, infinite — infinite in 
resources, infinite in duration, infinite in capacity — you need 
a life long enough to measure infinity. To meet these 
wants is to meet, and fully meet, the measure of your capac- 
ity and satiate this thirst. Add to this high knowledge, 
what indeed is inseparable from its full attainment, other 
attributes of emotion and delight experienced by a change 
of relation to the only Being in the universe we can properly 
adore — a change which involves the transformation of His 
attitude toward us, from Judge to Parent, from Condemner 
and Accuser to Protector and Justifier ; add the gratitude 
and adoration consequent upon the forgiveness of sin and 
salvation from ruin — a ruin infinite, immeasurable, utter, and 
irretrievable — to a condition of security and bliss, security 
infinite and bliss which language may not aptly express ; 
add the ripe enjoyments of home, and the companionship 
of beings like circumstanced with yourself, rescued from a 
similar ruin and saved to a similar security — and you have 
fulfilled all the conditions of happiness without alloy. To 
oow thus is indeed to swell the heart with gratitude, to 
kindle affection into its liveliest exercise, and to give sweep 
to our highest and noblest powers. When the human mind 
converses with and studies an Infinite God, in the state of 
pure spirits, in the courts of heaven, in the expanse of the 
universe of worlds, and during the duration of eternity, it 
needs no further, no other or higher excitant to action ; it 
needs no other and no further stimulant to perfect enjoyment 
and perfect bliss. 



CLXXI. 
THE CHARACTER OF THE TRUE CHILD OF GOD. 
Rev. T. V. Moore, D.D. 

" He is an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile !" 
This means vastly more than that a truly pious man is a 
sincere man. It is the cant of unbelief in our day, derived 
mainly from the sibylline pages of Carlyle, that sincerity or 



212 STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 

earnestness is, after all, the main, indeed the only thing 
requisite in religious belief. Let a man be sincere, and it 
matters little what he believes. But sincerity (as its very 
etymology shows : sine cera — honey without wax) is only a 
negative virtue. The honey may be without wax, trans- 
parent as water, and yet bitter and poisonous from other 
and unseen ingredients. So a man may be sincerely wrong 
as well as sincerely right, and sincerity is a high virtue only 
when connected with truth. When connected with error, 
it only makes it more dangerous. 

The true child of God has sincerity ; but he has that which 
is far higher, and gives to sincerity all its value. He is an 
Israelite indeed, a wrestler with God, a man who believes 
that God is, and is the rewarder of all who diligently seek 
Him ; and who, in this faith, pleads for pardon, purity, and 
peace in his own heart, and for the extension of Christ's 
kingdom in the hearts of others ; and who, to his believing 
prayerfulness, adds a guileless life ; a man whose life is his 
prayers in action, and whose prayers are his life in words. 
True prayer is something more than words. It is the man 
embodying himself in supplications to God. And the life 
that cannot be prayed, and the prayer that is not lived, are 
each, in their turn, defective. 

Hence we have here the exact elements of true piety that 
are elsewhere described in the Bible, for they are all in- 
volved in this description. To pray thus, he must have 
faith, and faith in Jesus Christ, for thus only has he access 
to a throne of grace ; he must have love, or he would not 
desire the proper objects of prayer; and he must have a 
holy obedience of life, or he would not be without guile. 
Hence, we are brought precisely where we ought always to 
be brought, and where Nathanael was brought by the same 
thing — to Jesus Christ, the only object of saving faith, the 
only way of saving access to a prayer-hearing God. 

The Israelite indeed is one who finds his Peniel at the 
cross ; who meets God there in the face and person of His 
Anointed ; who clings to God with that wrestling faith 
which will not let Him go without a blessing ; who cries as 
the widow cried, day and night, unceasing ; who cries as 
the Syro-Phoenician woman cried, even for the crumbs that 
fell to the dogs beneath the table ; who cries as the blind 
beggar of Jericho, when Jesus was passing by; who cries 
as the publican, when he said, " God, be merciful to me a 



sterling's southern orator. 213 

sinner," and from whom the kingdom of heaven suffers a 
holy violence, and is taken by storm. It is to such prayer 
that it is promised, " Ask and ye shall receive," and hence 
such prayerfulness, shining out through the alabaster of a 
guileless life, gives evidence of a genuine piety. 



CLXXII. 

RESPECT THE FOUNDATION OF NATIONAL FRIENDSHIP. 

Gov. Z. B. Vance. 

Respect must be the foundation of all national as well as 
all private friendships. And when the bitter pangs of the 
recent struggle are buried, as they must be, there will re- 
main no reason why mutual respect should not prevail ; 
unless, indeed, our conduct, in the hour of our humiliation, 
should furnish it. Here we have been in danger of the most 
cruel mistake. For grievously do we deceive ourselves, if 
we suppose that we inspire respect in the bosoms of our 
late enemies, in proportion as we voluntarily practise un- 
called for self-abasement. We can but inspire disgust alone, 
when we thus show them that their vast armies and great 
generals were, after all, only employed to subdue a race of 
mean-spirited dirt-eaters, from among whom the truly noble 
had been mercifully slain in the battle ! The severest con- 
tempt of civilization is richly merited by a people who would 
cast obloquy upon the ashes of their own dead children ; and 
as the best evidence of the truth and sincerity of their present 
obligations aver the utter falsity of their former ones ! That 
a man must be necessarily telling truth to-day, because he 
was undoubtedly a liar only so late as yesterday ! When 
we approach our conquerors with such evidences of loyalty, 
there is little wonder that we inspire contempt and sus- 
picion. Surely the fact of our submission can be sufficiently 
complete and sincere, without making the manner thereof 
such as to forfeit the respect either of ourselves or our late 
foes. 

Our great country of the South, with its fertile soil, 
happy climate, and boundless resources, excites the highest 
admiration of the Northern people. The vigorous scope 
and conservative tendency of our statesmanship they have 



214 sterling's southern orator. 

never failed to respect, and have even acknowledged that 
it has controlled, to a great degree, the policy of the Govern- 
ment in and from its organization ; thereby giving us 
credit for much of its power and glory. They cannot 
but remember that it was Southern farmer-statesmen, of 
Mecklenburg, North-Carolina, who sounded the key-note 
of Independence in 1775, in that celebrated paper in which, 
as pronounced by their own Adams, " the genuine sense of 
America at that moment was never so well expressed before 
nor since ;" and by the side of which Tom Paine's famous 
" Common-Sense" tracts, according to the same author, 
were a " poor, ignorant, malicious, crapulous mass." They 
cannot forget that the other world-renowned declaration, 
that of 1776, was from the brain of a Southern statesman ; 
and that it was the genius of a Southern general who, in 
making good its bold assumptions, rendered himself the 
most illustrious of mankind. Nor yet can they forget that 
in two foreign wars the most signal glory shed upon our 
country's arms was by the skill and valor of Southern 
commanders, followed by Southern volunteers. And cer- 
tainly they cannot overlook, even now, that fund of mili- 
tary genius, intrepid gallantry, heroic constancy under 
misfortune, and all the traits which mark a noble people, 
that we have so lately exhibited. I would as soon believe 
that there was no room for such things in the breasts of 
men as truth and honor, as that every soldier in the army 
of the Potomac, from its general to the humblest private 
that followed its banners, did not, in his heart, respect and 
honor the lofty courage, consummate skill, and patient con- 
stancy of that other army, which, though vastly inferior in 
numbers and appointments, yet kept it four years on the 
short but bloody journey from the Potomac to the James, 
and piled every inch of its pathway with ghastly monuments 
of the slain ! Let not the sneer of the supercilious, nor the 
taunt of the ungenerous, over our final defeat, deceive us in 
this matter, or cause us to abate one jot of our just claims 
to the high place in history which posterity will award us. 
That which has so moved upon the sympathy and admira- 
tion of the world has already excited, and will yet more 
excite, that of our Northern friends. And in due time, if 
we faint not, we shall reap those fruits which the generous 
and the better feelings of men never fail to bear. Years 
hence, when, as I trust, time and a juster policy shall have 



sterling's southern orator. 215 

healed many an ugly wound, and quieted many an aching 
heart, the story of the great civil war will be read around a 
thousand firesides among the homes of the North, and, as 
the glowing recital burns upon the ear, how that one fourth 
of the people of the United States, without manufactures 
and almost without arms, without ships, arsenals, or found- 
ries, shut out from all the world by a sealed blockade, for 
four long and terrible years fought back and kept at bay the 
other three fourths, who were aided by manumitted slaves, 
who had great navies, their own and the workshops of the 
world at their control, and whose slaughtered armies were 
filled up again and again from the swarming populations 
of Europe ; and how the ragged battalions of the South, 
under Lee, and Jackson, and Johnston, and Hoke, and Pen- 
der, and Early, struggled with the great armies of McClellan 
and Grant, and Sherman, and Sheridan, and Buell, until the 
world was full of their fame ; a thousand fathers, burning 
with the unconfessed pride of country and of race, will say 
to their sons who wonder how all this could have been : 
u These were the countrymen of Washington and Jackson. 
These were Americans : none but American citizens could 
have done these thing's !" 



CLXXIII. 
FILIAL DUTIES.— Charles Manly. 

The Almighty regards with favorable eye the efforts of 
filial duty. The first promise in the decalogue is to him 
that honoreth his father and mother. It is the primal bond 
of society, which the world, depraved and corrupt as it may 
be, respects with deferential homage. 

Who is there that does not admire the filial love of the 
great Epaminondas, who declared that the greatest pleasure 
which the renowned victory of Leuctra had afforded him 
consisted in the reflection that his aged parents had lived 
to rejoice in his fortune ? It was a noble spectacle, amid 
the flames that were consuming *Troy, and while the eager 
multitude were intent only on rescuing their paltry treasure, 
to see the dutiful iEneas bearing on his shoulder the vener- 
able Anchises, his aged father, to a place of safety. 



216 sterling's southern orator. 

We can scarcely conternj)late a sublimer spectacle than 
that of a virtuous youth, urged on in his struggle for knowl- 
edge, not only by the love of science and by a sense of its 
importance, but burning with the holy purpose of making, by 
his mental triumphs, a father's heart beat with delight, and 
a mother's breast glow with rapture ; sacrificing, with manly 
energy, the customary follies of his age, yielding his soul 
to the effort, and, like a successful competitor in a mighty 
race, pressing onward to the goal of honors, fame, and 
wealth. If the bosom of a parent ever burns with joy, it is 
in witnessing the efforts of such a son. 

If, when contemplating the possibility of his own pre- 
mature dismissal from the world, his soul can advert with 
comfort to any anchor for the shattered vessel which he 
leaves behind, it is when, revolving in the recesses of his 
burdened mind the prospects and fortunes of his bereaved 
family, he augurs, from the energy, the decision, the dili- 
gence, the character of a son, that his wife and children will 
yet have one around whom they may cling with hope ; one 
arm to stay them in distress; one pillar to support them; 
one shield to ward from them the perils of desolate widow- 
hood and of orphan helplessness. 

Take, then, young gentlemen, a retrospect of your past 
lives ; and when, from the giddy thoughtlessness of youth, 
your consciences shall reproach and chide you with neglect 
and disobedience, hasten to ask forgiveness, and renew 
your vows of veneration and fidelity. 

And be assured, my dear young friends, that when the 
progress of time, or the casualties of life, or the invasions of 
disease shall bring on that painful moment in which you are 
to take a last look of the parent who has watched and work- 
ed for you, the remembrance of your efforts to gratify him 
will send through your hearts a thrill of satisfaction which 
monarchs on a throne might envy. 



CLXXIV. 

RELIGION AND MEDICINE.— Rev. T. V. Moore, D.D. 

H 

The medical character demands the aid of Religion. — ■ 
That mingling of tenderness and firmness, patience and 
promptness, candor and self-constraint, caution and courage, 



sterling's southern orator, 217 

that are required in the good physician, is inculcated by the 
religion of Christ. A gentle, kind, and sympathizing manner 
is one of the most priceless qualifications of a physician. 
Many a man with such a manner and inferior skill to another 
without it has distanced him immensely in the practice of 
his profession. We may not dislike the rough and boister- 
ous man in health; but in sickness we are all children, and 
the tender hand, the quiet step, the sympathizing eye and 
the gentle voice of the beloved physician come like sun- 
shine to the soul, and are often better than drugs to the 
body. But nothing can permanently produce such a manner 
but genuine sympathy and kindness of soul, for it cannot be 
wholly counterfeited, and this is the very state of heart 
which true religion aims to produce. That gentleness, pa- 
tience, and kindness that are so priceless in a physician are 
the very graces which religion produces in the soul. 

The responsibilities of his profession equally call for it. 
He is intrusted with the lives, the honor, and the most 
secret and confidential facts of personal and domestic life. 
He comes in contact with all classes, rich and poor, virtuous 
and vile, in the very condition where they are most open 
to moral and religious influence. He has the most familiar 
admission to the entire range of human society, at the periods 
when human hearts are most susceptible and impressible. 
A physician, therefore, has opportunities of usefulness that no 
other man possesses, and a word from him will often do far 
more than many words from a minister^ which would be re- 
ceived as only professional. Hence, he has opportunities to 
do good to the soul, for which God will hold him account- 
able. To meet responsibilities like these he needs the aid 
of religion. 

His toils also demand it. His life is one of labor and 
trial. He must be ready to ansAver every call by night and 
by day, in sunshine and in storm, often among the poor and 
degraded, where he can hardly expect even thanks for his" 
most toilsome exertions; must deny himself many of the 
enjoyments of home, literature, and travel that are open to 
others; must brave unshrinkingly pestilence and contagion, 
more terrible than a battery of cannon; must encounter 
squalor, filth, and poverty in their most loathsome form, and 
confront death in its most appalling and repulsive ap- 
proaches. To meet all these aright, surely requires the aid 
of religion, without adverting to the fact that he who has 
10 



218 sterling's southern orator. 

aided others so often in sickness and death must, at last 
meet them himself, and may find in his own case what he 
could not but have seen in others, that a death-bed is not 
the place to do the work of a life. 



CLXXV. 

DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTHERN RESOURCES. 
William H. Garland. 

It is pleasing, with folded arms, to stand and gaze at the 
gorgeous sunset ; to mark each floating cloud as it is touched 
with its golden fringe, and weave fancy after fancy into a 
bright tissue for the future ; thus to stand until the stars 
peep out, and then, with a bound of the spark ethereal, 
which gives life and variety to man's thoughts, pass from 
star to star, peopling them with our thoughts, and filling 
them with our fancies ; but while we are pursuing these 
fancies of the mind, Nature in her changes reminds us, 
by the gathering darkness and falling dew, that man's life 
was not to be all a dream, but that on him rested high 
responsibilities ; that, while he was thus indulging in pleas- 
ing fancies, and permitting the mind to waste itself in 
dreams, he was neglecting the development of those bless- 
ings which Nature has so bounteously bestowed on him. 

In this day and time, when the mind is exercising its 
sovereignty over matter, the truth is felt and recognized 
that the gathering of the fruit, and the enjoyment of the 
blessings of heaven, belong not to the inert and slothful, 
but to those who, by the employment of those faculties of 
the mind with which a good God has blessed them, render 
the things of this world subservient to the great ends of 
their creation, the happiness and perfection of man. Let 
not, then, this convention waste its time on the pleasing 
fancies that cluster around abstract questions ; but let it, 
like that circlet of stars, cluster around one great idea, until 
their concentrated rays shall form one burning centre, so 
bright that the path which leads to the power, prosperity, 
and happiness of the South shall be so plain that none will 
hesitate. 



sterling's southern orator. 219 

What this idea should be, it is only necessary for us to 
look abroad to our sister States, and see the rapid strides 
which some of them have made to greatness and wealth. 
But a few years since, New-York occupied but a secondary 
position in the confederation of States; now she is the 
Empire State in population, wealth, and power. The genius 
of her Clinton opened her western resources, and filled her 
forests with the teeming population. The mind of her 
people indulged not in pleasing dreams, but was directed to 
the development of those gifts with which God had blessed 
them. Ohio caught the bright spirit of progress, and her 
t lines of improvement, by penetrating every corner, have 
' filled her rich valleys with a teeming population, and made 
her one of the first States of the Union. Georgia, first of 
the Southern States, was roused to the employment of her 
energies ; and now her barren plains are the abode of pro- 
ductive industry, and the happy cottage marks each of her 
mountain passes. 

From these let us gather wisdom, and, by the employment 
of the bright, noble spirit of the South, develop those ad- 
vantages which nature has so bounteously bestowed on us. 
Carry your lines of improvement to every section, and thus 
open for it a highway for the transfer of the productions of 
its industry, and you will soon bring wealth and power to 
the South. 

Much has been said of the unequal influence of the South 
in the hall of Congress, and resolution upon resolution has 
been offered on the subject; but this will not rectify the 
inequality. To do this, let the mind of the South be direct- 
ed to the development of the advantages which nature has 
so bounteously bestowed on her, and thus fill her now waste 
lands with a teeming population. This increased popula- 
tion will bring her increased representation on the floors of 
Congress, and to this, and to this alone, are we to look for 
an equalization of power. 



220 sterling's southern orator. 

CliXXVI. 

MORAL WRONG NOT LEFT UNPUNISHED. 
Moody B. Smith, Esq. 

Look through the microscope upon that insect, too small 
to be distinctly seen by the naked eye. See his form, with 
body, with limbs and vital power. Can you tell me how 
such small and delicate machinery is brought into existence, 
and animated with feelings of pleasure and pain ? Neither 
can you tell how moral wrong receives physical punish- ' 
ment ; yet nature is not restrained or disturbed because we 
are unable to comprehend it. Can you tell me how disre- 
spect to parents shortens life ? Yet the commandment of Holy 
Writ is, to honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days 
may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee. Can you tell me how the piety of a poor man will 
insure 'bread to his descendants? Yet we are told by the 
same high authority, that the righteous shall not be for- 
saken, neither shall his seed beg bread. By the same high 
authority, I tell you that moral wrong is temporally and 
physically punished, and moral rectitude rewarded. It is 
but a forerunner of those rewards and punishments which 
commence as life ends, and which are but the natural conse- 
quence of lying as each chooses to fall. If this is not so, 
there is no retribution for the deepest wrongs, for the vilest 
men have the least conscience, and their wrongs leave no 
sting in their own breast. 

That moral wrongs are thus punished we cannot prove 
by logical deduction, because our limited knowledge and 
capacity give us no premises from which to reason. But 
if there is any thing in the strongest induction ; if there is 
any thing in continued and unvarying antecedent and conse- 
quent ; if there is any thing in the threats and promises of 
Holy Writ, such punishment is inevitable. And, let me 
tell you, that of all enemies to a successful career this is 
the greatest. It is not only the divinity that shapes our 
ends ; it is the divinity that stays our course. You can 
never anticipate the blow. It comes like lightning from an 
unclouded sky. The same messenger brings your warning 
and your ruin. 



sterling's southern orator. 221 

A bad man has succeeded for a time. The labors of 
others have been turned to his own profit. The gold of 
others is in his own coffers. His tyranrfy feeds his lusts, 
and his wealth sustains his tyranny. He has cautiously 
calculated his career, and he thinks no arm can reach him 
or check him in his wrongs. He exults in his power. No 
conscience disturbs his repose. He has boldness and he 
sleeps quietly and without fear, little thinking that an un- 
seen sword is suspended over him, more terrible than that 
of Damocles ; little thinking that a dart is pointed at him 
as sure of its aim as eternal vengeance. He lies down 
at night loaded with wealth ; he rises up in the morning a 
beggar. He has fallen from a dizzy height. He has fallen 
in the full tide of success. He has fallen by a blow not an- 
ticipated. He has fallen by a blow from that unseen hand 
that never misses its aim. He has fallen like Sennacherib : 

" The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

• 

" Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn/' 

Sennacherib was in his glory. He exulted in his power. 
He despised his foe. He boasted of his sins. Defeat 
had never entered his mind. While thus secure, and in 
retribution for his crimes, at the command of God, 

" The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed," 

and the host of Sennacherib was no more. 

Young gentlemen, in the name of this example, given by 
inspiration for your instruction, I warn you against any 
fortune won by wrong ; lest, like Sennacherib's, your sun 
may set in splendor to rise in blood. 



222 sterling's southern orator. 

CLXXVII. 
DEFENCE OF A CLIENT.— S. S. Prentiss. 






It is said that my client had no right to interfere in de- 
fence of his brother ; so says the commonwealth's attorney. 
Go, gentlemen, and ask your mothers and sisters whether 
that be law. I refer you to no musty tomes, but to the 
living volumes of nature. What ! a man not permitted to 
defend his brother against conspirators ? against assassins 
who are crushing out the very life of their bruised and 
powerless victim? Why, he who would shape his conduct 
by such a principle does not deserve to have a brother or 
a friend. 

To fight for self is but the result of an honest instinct, 
which we have in common with the brutes. To defend 
those who are dear to us is the highest exercise of the 
principle of self-defence. It nourishes all the noblest social 
qualities, and constitutes the germ of patriotism itself. 

WlTy is the step of a Kentuckian free as that of the 
bounding deer ; firm, manly, and confident as that of the 
Macgregor when his foot was on the heather of his native 
hills, and his eye on the peak of Ben Lomond? It is be- 
cause he feels independent and proud ; independent in the 
knowledge of his rights, proud in the generous conscious- 
ness of ability and courage to defend them, not only in his 
own person, but in the persons of those who are dear to 
him. 

It was not the blood that would desert a brother or 
a friend which swelled the hearts of your fathers in the 
" olden time," when, in defence of those they loved, they 
sought the red savage through all the fastnesses of his 
native forest. It was not such blood that was poured out, 
free as a gushing torrent, upon the dark banks of the mel- 
ancholy Raisin, when all Kentucky armed her warrior sires. 
They were as bold and true as ever fought beneath a 
plume. The Roncesvalles pass, when fell before the oppos- 
ing lance the harnessed chivalry of Spain, looked not upon 
a braver or a better band. 

Kentucky has no law which precludes a man from de- 
fending himself, his brother, or his friend. Better for my 



STERLINGS SOUTHERN ORATOR. 223 

client had be never been born, than that he should have 
failed in his duty on this occasion. 



CliXXVIII. 
HOMESTEAD BILL— 1858.— Andrew Johnson. 

So far as I am concerned — I say it not in any spirit of 
boast or egotism — if this bill were passed, and the system 
it inaugurates carried out, granting a reasonable quantity 
of land for a man's family, looking far into the distance to 
see what is to result from it — a stable, an industrious, a 
hardy, a Christian, a philanthropic community growing out 
of it — I should feel that the great object of my little mission 
was fulfilled. All that I desire is the honor and the credit 
of being one of the American Congress to consummate and 
to carry out this great scheme that is to elevate our race, 
and to make our institutions more permanent. I want no 
reputation, as some have insinuated. You may talk about 
Jacobinism, Red Republicanism, and so on. I pass by such 
insinuations, as the idle wind, which I regard not. 

I know the motives that prompt me to action. I can go 
back to that period in my own history when I could not 
say I had a home. This being so, when I cast my eyes 
from One extreme of the United States to the other, and 
behold the great number that are homeless, I feel for them. 
I believe this bill would put them in possession of 
homes ; and I want to see them realizing that sweet con- 
ception when each man can proclaim, "I have a home; an 
abiding place for my wife and for my children ; I am not 
the tenant of another ; I am my own ruler ; and I will 
move according to my own will, and not at the dictation 
of another." Yes, Mr. President, if I should never be 
heard of again on the surface of God's habitable globe, the 
proud and conscious satisfaction of having contributed my 
little aid to the consummation of this great measure is all 
the reward I desire. 

The people need friends. They have a great deal to bear. 
They make all; they do all; but how little they participate 
in the legislation of the country ! All, or nearly all, of our 
legislation is for corporations, for monopolies, for classes, 



224 sterling's southern orator. 

and individuals^ bub the great mass who produce all, who 
make all, while we do nothing but consume, are little 
cared for; their rights and interests are neglected and 
overlooked. Let us as patriots, let us as statesmen, let us 
as Christians, consummate this great measure, which will 
exert an influence throughout the civilized world in fulfill- 
ing our destiny. 



CLXXIX. 

GOVERNMENT.— B. R. Wellford. 

Government is of divine, not of human origin ; and it 
commands in the voice of God, not of a man or a mob. 
But it has been instituted for the furtherance of the same 
great end which the individual is enjoined to keep steadily 
in view. Governor and governed are alike fallible — subject 
to the same authority, and neither may be recreant to its 
trust at the command of the other. The doctrine of pas- 
sive obedience finds as little sanction in the reason as in 
the spirit of upright men. The point where obedience 
should end and resistance begin may not be exactly de- 
fined. Its determination is the gravest question of individ- 
ual responsibility. Resistance is only justifiable when obe- 
dience imperils the public weal. To raise the arm of rebel- 
lion to redress a private injury is as criminal as to strike it 
down to perpetuate a public wrong. There is a higher law 
to which both governed and governor are amenable ; and 
of its extent an enlightened conscience is the only authori- 
tative exponent. Conflicts must arise, which may some- 
times be decided only by an appeal to the God of battles. 
Be the immediate result as it may, the Providence that 
overrules the destinies of men will ultimately vindicate the 
right. Transitory success is not a conclusive judgment — 
nor a contemporary generation the final tribunal. History 
has canonized the memory of a John Rogers and a Robert 
Emmet. There is something of the moral sublime, that 
wakes the admiration of the soul in the attitude of him 
who, in the conscientious discharge of duty, boldly de- 
fying the power of government, and reckless of the penal- 
ties of unrighteous law, swerves not at its behest from the 



sterling's southern orator. 225 

path of right. A felon's doom precedes the martyr's 
crown. But as there is an actual, so there is a counterfeit 
conscientiousness in withstanding the ordinances of govern- 
ment — and as the one displays the noblest virtues, the other 
vainly affects to conceal the basest vices of our kind. 
There is a race of turbulent and designing demagogues who 
make profit of simulated public virtue, ever courting a 
martyr's fame, but instinctively avoiding the hazards of a 
martyr's fate. The halter is degraded by the wretch who, 
in a hypocritical pretence of obedience to a higher power, 
inflames the passions of a quiet people against a benignant 
government, and, to gratify an insatiate lust for gold or 
power, would deluge a genial soil in the best blood of thou- 
sands of the deluded victims of his craft and his hypocrisy. 
A Christian people recognize the existence and supremacy 
of a higher law ; but the plea of that higher law on the 
part of him who has purchased place by the most solemn 
engagement on the Evangely of Almighty God, in exten- 
uation and justification of a premeditated breach of the 
obligation thus intelligently and deliberately incurred, 
would have shocked the degraded moral sentiment of the 
court of the Stuarts. 



CLXXX. 

• THE BIBLE AND CIVIL LAW.— Rev. T. V. Moobe, D.D. 

We prize the checks and balances of our constitutional 
law. Did space permit, Ave could show that their counter- 
parts all existed essentially in the complicated, and admi- 
rable adjustments of the Hebrew commonwealth. A The- 
ocracy in its relation to God, it was a republic in its relation 
to man, and embodied all the great principles of civil lib- 
erty that have since been wrought into the free govern- 
ments of the world. Its executive was elective, first, in the 
consular form of the judges, and afterward in that of the 
kings, whose power was limited to that of a mere presi- 
dency for life, and regulated, not only by the written law, 
but also by the prophetic order, which, from Samuel onward, 
was a standing check on royal usurpation, and guarded 
Theocratic rights on the one hand, and popular rights on 
10* 



226 sterling's southern orator. 

the other. Its judiciary was of the most efficient kind. 
Moses required them to elect judges for all the various sub- 
divisions of the people, for thousands, hundreds, fifties, and 
tens, thus making a series of appellate tribunals of regular 
gradation in each tribe ; whilst for all the tribes, there was 
a Sanhedrim, or Senate of seventy, which, like similar bodies 
in many modern governments, was a high court of appeals 
for the whole nation. It had its commons, or house of rep- 
resentatives for the whole nation, (as Michaelis has clearly 
shown,) called " the congregation of Israel," which was the 
great legislative assembly for the entire people. It had its 
confederation of independent states, each tribe retaining 
its separate sovereignty, yet all combined for general pur- 
poses in the United States of Israel, whose Union remained 
unbroken until the great secession under Jeroboam. It had 
its written constitution and laws, to which every officer was 
bound to conform. In a word, it had all the parts of a 
working republic in harmonious adjustment long before the 
haughty aristocracies of Greece and Rome had usurped 
this name in the nomenclature of history. 

Did time further allow, we could show that these laws 
have mingled with all the later flow of human history, were 
studied in Babylon, Persia, and Greece, thus translated to 
Rome, and thence to the legislation of all modern times. 
Hence, it is a historical fact that this mighty system of 
modern law, which stands before us like some grand old oak, 
whose gnarled branches have wrestled with the storms of 
centuries, has its roots further back' in the past than they 
are often traced. They reach not merely to the dark mould 
of the middle ages, nor to the pillars of the Forum, nor the 
rocky base of the Areopagus, but further, deeper still, until 
we find them twisted in living and inseparable embrace 
around the fire-clad rocks of Sinai. 

That religion whose sacred records contain the very con- 
stitution of God's government on earth ; the mighty trans- 
actions of covenant and compact, of law and government, 
of -precept and penalty, that stretch from the song of the 
morning stars to the great white throne, from the creation 
to the judgment, surely has a claim of the strongest charac- 
ter on the reverence, the study, and the trust of that pro- 
fession whose science owes so much to this most ancient, 
most authentic, and most venerable repository of law on 
earth. 



sterling's southern orator. 227 

CLXXXI. 

OBSTACLES TO COMPROMISE— 1861.— S. A. Douglas. 

I never understood that wise and good men ever regard- 
ed mutual concession by such men as Washington, Madison, 
Franklin, and Hamilton, as evidences of weakness, coward- 
ise, or want of patriotism. On the contrary, this spirit of 
conciliation and compromise has ever been considered, and 
will in all time be regarded, as the highest evidence which 
their great deeds and immortal services ever furnished of 
their patriotism, wisdom, foresight, and devotion to their 
country and their race. Can we not afford to imitate their 
example in this momentous crisis ? Are we to be told that 
we must not do our duty to our country, lest we injure the 
party ; that no compromise can be effected without violat- 
ing the party platform upon which we were elected ? Bet- 
ter that all party platforms be scattered to the winds ; bet- 
ter that all political organizations be broken up ; better 
that every public man and politician in America be con- 
signed to political martyrdom, than that the Union be de- 
stroyed and the country plunged into civil war. 

It seems that party platforms, pride of opinion, personal 
consistency, fear of political martyrdom, are the only ob- 
stacles to a satisfactory adjustment. Have we nothing else 
to live for but political position ? Have we no other in- 
ducement, no other incentive to our efforts, our toils, and 
our sacrifices ? Most of us have children, the object of our 
tenderest affections and deepest solicitude, whom we hope* 
to leave behind us to enjoy the rewards of our labors in a 
happy, prosperous, and united country, under the best gov- 
ernment the wisdom of man ever devised or the sun of 
heaven ever shone upon. Can we make no concessions, no 
sacrifices, for the sake of our children, that they may have 
a country to live in, and a government to protect them, 
when party platforms and political honors shall avail us 
nothing in the day of final reckoning ? 



228 sterling's southern orator. 

CLXXXII. 
THE DEATH OF HAMILTON,— Dr. M^on. 

Sad, my fellow-citizens, are the recollections and forebod- 
ings which the present solemnities force upon the mind. 
Five years have not elapsed since your tears flowed for the 
father of your country, and you are again assembled to shed 
them over her eldest son. No, it is not an illusion ; would 
to God it were ! Your eyes behold it ; the urn which bore 
the ashes of Washington is followed by the urn which bears 
the ashes of Hamilton. 

Fathers, friends, countrymen ! the grave of Hamilton 
speaks. It charges me to remind you that he fell a victim, 
not to disease or accident ; not to the fortune of glorious 
warfare ; but — how shall I utter it ? to a custom which has 
no origin but superstition, no aliment but depravity, no 
reason but in madness. Alas ! that he should thus expose 
his precious life. This was his error. A thousand bursting 
hearts reiterate, *This was his error. 

Shall I apologize ? I am forbidden by his living protes- 
tations, by his dying regrets, by his wasted blood. Shall 
a solitary act, into which he was betrayed and dragged, 
have the authority of a precedent ? The plea is precluded 
by the long decisions of his understanding, by the principles 
of his conscience, and by the reluctance of his heart. Ah ! 
when will our morals be purified, and an imaginary honor 
cease to cover the most pestilent of human passions ? 

My appeal is to military men. Your honor is sacred. 
^Listen. Is it honorable to enjoy the esteem of the wise and 
the good ? The wise and the good turn with disgust from 
the man who lawlessly aims at his neighbor's life. Is it 
honorable to serve your country? That man cruelly in- 
jures her who, from private pique, calls his fellow-citizen 
into the dubious field. 

Is fidelity honorable ? The man forswears his faith who 
turns against the bowels of his countrymen weapons put 
into his hands for their defence. Are generosity, humanity, 
sympathy, honorable? The man is superlatively base who 
mingles the tears of the widow and orphan with the blood 
of a husband and father. Do refinement and courtesy and 
benignity entwine with the laurels of the brave ? The blot 



sterling's southern orator. 229 

is yet to be wiped from the soldier's name, that he cannot 
treat his brother with the decorum of a gentleman unless 
the pistol or the dagger be every moment at his heart. Let 
the votaries of honor now look at their deed. Let them 
compare their doctrine with this horrible comment. 

My countrymen, the land is denied with blood unright- 
eously shed. Its cry, disregarded on earth, has gone up to 
the throne of God ; and this day does our punishment re- 
veal our sin. It is time for us to awake. The voice of 
moral virtue, the voice of domestic alarm, the voice of the 
fatherless and widow, the voice of a nation's wrong, the 
voice of Hamilton *s blood, the voice of impending judg- 
ment, calls for a remedy. 

At this hour heaven's high reproof is sounding from Maine 
to Georgia, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks 
of the Mississippi. If we refuse obedience, every drop of 
blood spilled in single combat will lie at our door, and will 
be recompensed when our cup is full. We have, then, our 
choice, either to coerce iniquity or prepare for desolation ; 
and in the mean time, to make our nation, though infant in 
years, mature in vice, the scorn and the abhorrence of civil- 
ized man ! 

Fathers, friends, countrymen ! the dying breath of 
Hamilton recommended to you the Christian's hope. His 
single testimony outweighs all the cavils of the sciolist and 
the jeers of the profane. 

Who will venture to pronounce a fable that doctrine of 
" life and immortality" which .his profound and irradiating 
mind embraced as the truth of God ? When you are to 
die, you will find no source of peace but in the faith of 
Jesus. Cultivate for your present repose and your future 
consolation what our departed friend declared to be the 
support of his expiring moments : u A tender reliance on the 
mercies of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord 
Jesus Christ." 



230 sterling's southern orator. 

clxxxiii. 

HUMAN EXCELLENCE NOT SELF-BORN.— George Davis 

No human excellence is self-born. When you read of 
Minerva springing at a bound from the brain of Jupiter, 
full-formed and perfect, I would have you to remember 
that you are reading fable — and a fable that speaks only 
of the gods. It is a dangerous creed which teaches that 
some are born good and great, while others are equally born 
base and wicked. Without intending to broach the discus- 
sion of a great ethical problem, I am persuaded that the 
difference in our original natures, especially as regards 
the moral qualities, is far less than is generally supposed ; 
and that it is the method and degree of culture, more par- 
ticularly of self-culture, which chiefly makes the difference 
in men and women. And I fear this truth is but seldom 
rightly comprehended by the young. You fix your gaze 
upon some real or imaginary pattern of excellence, sigh 
at what you deem its unapproachable perfection, and mur- 
mur despondingly in your hearts, " Ah ! if God had only 
made me like unto her!" Now, while none can give you 
the assurance that you are equal to any named perfection, 
yet it is equally true that none can assure you, and there- 
fore it is folly to persuade yourselves, that it is beyond 
your reach. It is perfectly certain that God has given you 
the capability to be all that He intended you to be, and 
therefore all that you ought to be. When men have achieved 
greatness and fame, so much of the brightness of their sub- 
sequent career is reflected back upon their early life that 
we are apt to view it in a false light. We read of the glo- 
ries of Areola, Marengo, Wagram, and Austerlitz, and we 
see only the Consul and the Emperor, and think that he 
must have been born king of men. We shut our eyes to 
what was perhaps the real touchstone of his splendid suc- 
cess. We do not heed the laborious study and discipline 
of the scholar of the Polytechnique ; we forget the severe 
application, and the brave and almost cruel self-mas- 
tery of the young lieutenant of artillery ; aboye all, we 
forget that Napoleon had Madame Letitia for his mother. 
When we are told that the publisher of Dickens sold 
35,000 copies of the first number of his new serial, we think 



sterling's southern orator. • 231 

of him only as he- first burst upon the world in all the 
humor, pathos, and genius of the Pickwick Papers. We for- 
get the obscure and unfriended young law-clerk, earning 
the scantiest subsistence by reporting for the daily papers, 
struggling with poverty, hardship, and drudgery in every 
shape ; yet fighting bravely on, until he won a noble tri- 
umph over them all at last. I am not contending that all 
men are born Clays or Websters, if they choose, nor all wo- 
men Somervilles and De Staels. It contents me to an- 
nounce a far narrower projDosition — that it is in the power 
of each one of us to be much better and wiser than we are, 
and easily much worse. ' Take, then, this admitted truth 
as the resting-point of a generous ambition. Ponder it 
well. Let it be the ark to which your thoughts, whither- 
soever they may wander by day, will faithfully return at 
night, and fold their wings. This done, and one of the 
surest guides to excellence is already yours. If self-exam- 
ination finds you feeble, be not disheartened. The very 
beginning of our strength is the knowledge and study of 
our weakness. Our journey upon earth is like the passage 
of a feeble army through a hostile land. If we would reach 
the goal at which we aim, we must move with care and 
caution, with perseverance and hope. Every step as we ad- 
vance, we must set the sentinels, and fortify the camp. 
How can we properly fortify, if we know not where the 
attack is most likely to be successful? Beginning thus 
with the knowledge that you are weak yet can make your- 
selves strong, let thought rise into reflection, reflection into 
resolution, resolution into daily action — and behold! the 
victory and the peace ! 



clxxxiv. 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF CONSCIENCE.— Rev. W. M. Wingate. 

I have reserved for the last, because the most important 
of all our faculties, the improvement of the conscience. This 
susceptibility it is which makes us capable of moral action. 
But, as distinct from intuition and reason, it does not cu 
tain duty. Trge to its place as a susceptibility, while it 



232 ■ sterling's southern orator. 

prompts investigation, it secures obedience to duty when 
known. The truths which involve first principles in mo- 
rals, as axioms in mathematics, come of our intuitions. 
Truths w^hich follow from these by inference, and new facts 
and relations made known by testimony, come through the 
reason. Conscience, then, to be enlightened, must be under 
the guidance of correct intuitions, and a well-informed rea- 
son. Here she is a dependent — a pupil who must look up 
to others ; and her culture presupposes the culture of other 
faculties. What harmonies are here ! The highest faculty 
in some important respects made the dependent of others. 
How fixed the law of progress ! We must move in our en- 
tireness, or move wrongly. 

But there is a sense in which the conscience acts su- 
premely, and maintains no precarious foothold upon the 
domain of reason. It is in her stern regard to duty — in 
her securing obedience to the right. Here, she is the god- 
like faculty. But for her, indeed, reason would never in- 
vestigate the right and wrong of any question ; for with no 
susceptibility in the mind to feel, reason would never be 
awakened to the search. Powerless and dead would it lie 
in all the domain of morals, and cold rationalists we should 
be but for this prompter in the mind. But conscience does 
not simply stimulate the mind to action : she controls that 
action; tells it where it shall roam, and how far; what it 
shall do, and how much ; and with her foot pressed firmly on 
the right, she prescribes law to all the faculties, and makes 
them do her bidding. Does imagination crave indulgence 
in the new-wrought tale, fresh from the press and fresh in 
the mouth of every one ? conscience alone can control the 
wayward suppliant from the stronghold of duty. Does the 
reason, forgetting her sobriety, wish to pry into things for- 
bidden, and taste too freely of the tree of knowledge? con- 
science can recall the adventurous thought and give it new 
direction; or does the stern will flag under the hard-set 
task which discipline requires ? conscience, with her grasp on 
duty, can firmly hold it to its work and make it will, though 
quite unwilling. Do the affections run vagrant, flying from 
heaven to earth, from earth to heaven? conscience alone 
can fix them as the needle to the pole. Ay, what is there 
attainable in thought or work, in daring or enduring, that 
conscience cannot do? Here is the fortress of my strength 
with you, to-day, young ladies. I would «build upon this 



sterling's southern orator. 233 

basis the power of my appeal. Here I would fix a nail in a 
sure place. This joyous festival will soon be over. Pa- 
rents, teachers, scholars, will soon be gone. But what shall 
awken us to self-improvement ? What shall keep us steady, 
and nerve us to new encounters ? These inspiring scenes 
and circumstances ; or appeals to your vanity ; or sounding 
beforehand in your ears the trump of fame ; or, worse still, 
touching the spirit of rivalry within you by contrasts with 
the other sex ? No, no. I shall tell you — and, failing here, 
I shall wish to fail entirely — I shall tell you that, in the light 
of conscience, the improvement of your mind is made your 
first duty; that the gifts themselves — the rich possession — 
imply high responsibilities and grave duties from which 
we cannot, must not flee. How, then, shall we cultivate 
it ? how T shall we increase its power and nerve its strength ? 
When enlightened, promptly and persistently obey it. 

Its slightest touches, instant pause ; 

Debar a' side pretences ; 
And resolutely keep its laws, 

Uncaring consequences. 

But short hand directions will not do for this august 
faculty. What is it? Whence its power unless it breathes 
in the element where alone it can live and move and have 
its being ? What is the sublime faculty of conscience out 
of Christianity ? Poor and pitiful is this, or any other fa- 
culty of frail humanity, if we flutter only for our day, and 
death bounds us round. Short and brief the triumph or 
disaster, if the visual horizon which girds us in, shuts up our 
life, our hopes. Is there no opening of the book of des- 
tiny, no broad and clear expanse, beyond the thin ethe- 
real blue which stops the vision ; no stretching out of the 
curtains of time into a far off land ? no day of reckoning ? no 
solemn retribution? If not, conscience will be weak indeed. 
This, above all the other faculties, draws its power from two 
worlds, and its supplies drawn much less from the present 
than from that to come. Christianity alone allows it such a 
home. 



234 sterling's southern orator. 



OLXXXV. 



DUELLING.— Rev. E. Nott, D.D. 

Since the opinions of men are as they are, do you ask 
how you shall avoid the imputation of cowardice, if you do 
not light when you are injured? Ask your family how 
you will avoid the imputation of cruelty : ask your con- 
science how you will avoid the imputation of guilt : ask God 
how you will avoid His malediction, if you do. These are 
previous questions. Let these first be answered, and it will 
be easy to reply to any which may follow them. If you 
only accept a challenge, when you believe in your con- 
science that duelling is wrong, you act the coward. The 
dastardly fear of the world governs you. Awed by its 
menaces, you conceal your sentiments, appear in disguise, 
and act in guilty conformity to principles not your own, and 
that, too, in the most solemn moment, and when engaged 
in an act which exposes you to death. 

But if it be rashness to accept, how passing rash is it in 
a sinner to give a challenge? Does it become him, whose 
life is measured out by crimes, to be extreme to mark and 
punctilious to resent whatever is amiss in others ? Must the 
duellist, who, now disdaining to forgive, so imperiously 
demands satisfaction to the utmost, must this man himself, 
trembling at the recollection of his offences, presently ap- 
pear a suppliant before the mercy-seat of God ? Imagine 
this, (and the case is not imaginary,) and you cannot con- 
ceive an instance of greater inconsistency or of more pre- 
sumptuous arrogance. Therefore, " avenge not yourselves, 
but rather give place unto wrath : for vengeance is mine, 
I will repay, saith the Lord. 5 ' Do you ask, then, how you 
shall conduct toward your enemy who hath lightly done 
you wrong ? If he be hungry, feed him ; if naked, clothe 
him ; if thirsty, give him drink. Such, had you preferred 
your question to Jesus Christ, is the answer He had given 
you. By observing which, you will usually subdue, and 
always act more honorably than your enemy. 



sterling's southern orator. 235 

CLXXXVI. 
ON THE INCREASE OF THE ARMY.— Jefferson Davis. 

[It had been asserted in debate that the army stultifies 
young men and renders them fit instruments of despotism. 
To this assertion Mr. Davis replied as follows:] 

We have other and great examples. Did Washington be- 
come the fit instrument of a despotism? was he stultified 
because he entered the service of the United States in his 
youth ? That great mind which comprehended the whole 
condition of the colonies ; that heart which beat sympatheti- 
cally for every portion of his common country, feeling equally 
for Massachusetts and South-Carolina, for New- York and 
Virginia ; that great arm which smoothed the thorny path of 
revolution, and led the colonies from rational liberty up to 
national independence, and laid the foundation of that pros- 
perity and greatness which have made us a people, not only 
an example for the whole world, but a protection to liberal 
principles wherever liberty asserts a right — was he stultified 
by service in the army ? Jackson, too, the indomitable Jack- 
son, who when a boy and a captive spurned the insult of a 
despot, and for asserting his personal dignity received a 
wound, the scar of which he carried to his grave — was he 
by service in the army when yet a minor, by brilliant ex- 
ploits in middle age, rendered the fit instrument of des- 
potism ? If it be said these were men drawn from the pur- 
suits of civil life and only occasionally employed in the 
military service, what, then, shall be said of the great, the 
good, heroic Taylor ? for a hero he was, not in the mere 
vulgar sense of animal courage, but by the higher and nobler 
attributes of generosity and clemency. His was an eye that 
looked unquailing when the messengers of death were fly- 
ing around him ; but in the ward-room, over his wounded 
comrade, was dimmed by the tear of a soldier's love and 
compassion. His was a self-reliant, resolute heart, which 
rose under accumulated difficulties, and hardened by contact 
with danger; but that heart melted to a woman's softness 
at the wail of the helpless or the appeal of the vanquished. 
He was a hero, a moral hero. His heart was his country's, 
and his life had been his country's own through all its 



286 sterling's southern orator. 

stages. Was he the fit instrument of a despot, to be used for 
the overthrow of the liberties of the United States ? 

Shall I prove my proposition by going on and multiply- 
ing examples ; or is it not apparent that whatever may be 
true of the history of Rome, whatever may be true of the 
condition of Europe, the United States stands out its own 
founder and its own example ? No other people like our 
own ever founded a state. ^ISTo other people like our own 
have ever thus elevated a state to such greatness in so 
small a space of time. If there be evidence of decay, that 
decay is not to be found in the spirit of your little army, but 
is to be hunted for in the impurities of your politicians. It 
therefore does not become the politician to point to our little 
and gallant and devoted army as the incipient danger which 
is to overthrow the liberties of this country. 



CLXXXVII. 

THE EXPANSIBILITY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES.— James M. Mason. 

Mr. President, if the States and the people of the States 
would only look at things as they are, they would see that 
we have a continent here peculiarly fitted for that priceless 
form of government which we have adopted, and a govern- 
ment equally fitted for the continent. There was an impres- 
sion, I know, actuating the minds of many of our early 
statesmen, that our forms of government were not suscepti- 
ble of expansion, but that, in course of time, by its very ex- 
pansion, the government would break to pieces of its own 
Aveight. So far as I can read the great mission of popular 
government upon this continent, the very reverse is to be 
the result. If there be a government on earth that is suscep- 
tible of indefinite expansion, it is the government of these 
States. What are they ? A confederation of equal sover- 
eigns, each member of the confederacy a separate organized 
political community ; and, if one or more should fall from 
the confederacy, at the very instant of the severance such 
State would be a perfect whole, and in the immediate ex- 
ercise of every function that pertains to government — teres 



sterling's southern orator. 237 

Clique rotundus — an executive, a legislative, a judiciary de- 
partment, organized with officers capable of exercising every 
function of independent power; hardly requiring any addi- 
tional legislation but what might be necessary to make pro- 
vision for foreign intercourse. If the American mind could 
only be brought to look on this government in its true 
character, and remit to the States what belongs to them — 
the exclusive jurisdiction of their own affairs within their 
own limits — not interfering with them, but adhering to the 
behests of the Constitution, and administering only those 
great federal powers which were conferred upon the com- 
mon government for the common good of the whole, in the 
administration of wmich, appropriately done, there would 
be no interference or collision with State authorities : what 
would be the result ? State after State might come into the 
Union ; they might expand, as they have done, from thirteen 
to thirty-one, and to sixty-one, and to one hundred and one ; 
and they would all revolve as harmoniously around their 
common orbit, the Federal Government, as did the original 
thirteen ; susceptible of expansion to any extent, and strong- 
er as they expanded. And as if to anticipate such expansion 
in the advancement of the arts of civilized life, the telegraphs 
and railroads of modern construction lend their powerful 
aid to bind them together by agencies that annihilate time 
and space. 



CIiXXXVIII. 

A DEFENCE OF DANIEL WEBSTER.— John M. Clayton 

No man here has questioned, in the most violent moments 
of party excitement — not amidst the fiercest of all political 
strife — his purity of purpose in debate. Grant to him, what 
all others who have any title to the character of gentlemen 
demand for themselves, that he believed what he said ; 
grant that, in his judgment, as well as that of many here, 
the very existence of our liberties is involved in the surren- 
der of the principle he contended for ; grant that the con- 
centration of legislative and executive power in the hands 
of a single man is the death-blow to the constitution, and 
that the senator was right in considering the proposed ap- 



238 sterling's southern orator. 

propriation as establishing the very principle which gave 
that fatal blow — and who is he that, thus believing, would 
support that proposition, because the guns of the enemy 
were battering at the w x alls of the capitol ? Where is the 
coward, where is the traitor, who would not rather see the 
capitol than the constitution of his country in ruins ? or 
who would lend himself to the establishment of a despotism 
among us, with a view to save this building for the despot 
to revel in ? 

Sir, in the days when Themistocles led the Athenians to 
victory at Salamis, he advised them to surrender their capi- 
tol for the preservation of the constitution of their country 
That gallant people rose under the impulse of patriotism as 
one man, and with a stern resolution to yield life itself 
rather than abandon their liberties, and surrender the proud 
privilege of legislating for themselves to the delegate of a 
Persian despot, who offered them " all their own dominions, 
together with an accession of territory ample as their wishes, 
upon the single condition that they should receive law and 
suffer him to preside in Greece." At that eventful period 
of their history, Crysilus alone proposed the surrender of 
their constitution to save the capitol ; and they stoned him 
to death. The public indignation was not yet satisfied ; 
for the Athenian matrons then rose and inflicted the same 
punishment on his wife. Leaving their capitol, and their 
noble city, rich as it was with the productions of every art, 
and glittering all over with the proudest trophies and the 
most splendid temples in the world — deserting, in the cause 
of free government, the very land that gave them birth — 
they embarked on board their ships, and fought that battle, 
the name of which has made the bosoms of freemen to thrill 
with sympathy in all the ages that have followed it, and 
shall cause the patriot's heart to beat higher with emotion 
through countless ages to come. 

I repeat, sir, what no man who knows the senator from 
Massachusetts has ever doubted, that he was sincere in de- 
claring that he viewed the proposition under debate as in- 
volving the surrender of the most valuable trust reposed in 
us by the constitution to a single man, and as one which, 
while it delegates the legislative power to the executive, 
establishes a precedent to prostrate the constitution forever. 
I do not feel, however, that his conduct needs vindication 
from me or any other ; for, although the transient spirit of 



sterling's southern orator. 239 

party may have sought to obscure his exalted character in 
the eyes of those who are easily led by misrepresentation 
into error, honorable fame has already encircled his temples 
with a wreath of unfading verdure, and impartial history 
shall hereafter emphatically designate him, amidst all the 
compatriots of his day, as the able, the eloquent, the fearless 
champion and defender of his country's constitution. 



CLXXXIX. 
NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON.— R. C. Winthrop. 

Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which 
you have assembled. Lay the corner-stone of a monument 
which shall adequately bespeak the gratitude of the whole 
American people to the illustrious Father of his country ! 
Build it to the skies; you cannot outreach the loftiness 
of 'his principles ! Found it upon the massive and eternal 
rock ; you cannot make it more enduring than his fame ! 
Construct it of the peerless Parian marble ; you cannot 
make it purer than his life ! Exhaust upon it the rules 
and principles of ancient and modern art ; you cannot make 
it more proportionate than his character ! 

But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think 
not to transfer to a tablet or a column the tribute which is 
due from yourselves. Just honor to Washington can only 
be rendered by observing his precepts and imitating his 
example. He has built his own monument. We and those 
who come after us, in successive generations, are its ap- 
pointed, its privileged guardians. 

The wide-spread republic is the true monument to Wash- 
ington. Maintain its Independence. Uphold its Constitu- 
tion. Preserve its Union. Defend its Liberty. Let it stand 
before the world in all its original strength and beauty, 
securing peace, order, equality, and freedom to all within 
its boundaries, and shedding light, and hope, and joy upon 
the pathway of human liberty throughout the world ; and 
Washington needs no other monument. Other structures 
may "fitly testify our veneration for him; this, this alone, 
can adequately illustrate his services to mankind. 



240 sterling's southern orator, 

Nor does he need even this. The republic may perish ; 
the wide arch of our ranged Union may fall ; star by star 
its glories may expire ; stone by stone its columns and its 
capitol may moulder and crumble ; all other names which 
adorn its annals may be forgotten ; — but as long as human 
hearts shall anywhere pant, or human tongues shall any- 
where plead, for a true, rational, constitutional liberty, those 
hearts shall enshrine the memory, and those tongues prolong 
the fame, of George Washington ! 



cxc. 

THE HUNGARIAN EXILE.— Kossuth. 

A home and true friends are two of the fairest gifts of 
Heaven allotted to man on earth. The exiled chief of Hun- 
gary, who has now the honor to acknowledge your kindness, 
has no home. The soil upon which my cradle stood — the 
soil where I dreamed the short, rosy dreams of childhood, 
though even then interrupted by the inspirations of the 
patriot's heart — the soil which saw me struggle and strive 
for my people's freedom, and for the independence of my 
native land — the soil to which I have devoted my life, 
and for which I will readily die — that soil is a valley of 
desolation now. The sanguinary tools of foreign violence 
have polluted its sacred fields, watered by torrents of pa- 
triotic martyr blood. The fair land is a vast prison, 
wherein nature groans, and, though fettered, with clinched 
fists looks up to Heaven for the day of retribution and of 
deliverance. The storm of oppression, the clouds of tyr- 
anny, hang gloomily over the land. It has lost every thing, 
only not its honor — not its trust in God— not its hope for 
the future — not the manly resolution once more to rise in 
inexorable judgment over tyrants and oppressors. 

And oh, how I love thee, my poor native land ! How I 
love thee in thy gloom ! How keenly thy sorrows affect 
my bleeding heart ! How I long for thee, my own dear 
native land, with the fond desire of an exile's heart ! Home 
of my people, which I left, and which God will once jnore 
lead on the path of glory and freedom ! home of my recol- 



sterling's southern orator. 241 

lections — of my love ! I greet thee out of the very midst of 
thy generous friends of America, who, benevolent because 
free, stretch out their gigantic arms over the waves with 
consolation to thee, and shout out over the vast regions of 
this republic thy name with millions of tongues, in token 
that there is yet a future to this, because there is an Amer- 
ica, free and powerful, watching the laws of nations, and 
ready to defend what despots dare to offend. 

Thus, though I have no home, yet the home of my people 
lias good friends, who, with the aid of God, I hope will yet 
restore myself also to my home, that I may have at least a 
homely grave in which to lay down my weary head, that 
the sun of freedom may cast its rays over the flower of 
memory which the kind remembrance of my people will 
plant over the grave of its faithful servant. 



CXCI. 

AN APPEAL FOR THE ORPHAN.— Henhy A. Wise. 

It is to no corporate charity that I appeal — it is to no 
charity which doles merely to indigence — it is to no charity 
w T hich gives benefactions only to the poor. I appeal to a 
higher, a more Christian charity, the charity of active good- 
ness, the doing as well as the giving charity of good affec- 
tion, of earnest, watchful love and tender kindness. The 
necessaries of life and comfort are all wanting and must be 
supplied ; but they are nothing compared with the warm, 
attentive love and sympathy w T hich administer careful, ten- 
der, delicate services, w r hich remind them not that they are 
orphans, and make them feel that they have guardians to 
try to supply the place of parents and provide a haven, 
and safe and sure home for them ; that they, in common with 
us, have cc Our Father which art in heaven !" Don't throw 
plenty even to them as to the dogs ; they w r on't thank you 
for plenty even, thus given ; but give them " that manna" 
which is the " bread of life !" That it is which will not 
only help them to live, but will make you love to give, so 
that you as well as they may live forever. This is that 
bread which feedeth him who freely from the heart giveth 
it to feed the poor. 
11 



242 stekling's southekn oratok. 

To all Christians, then, and to all churches, I appeal ! To 
thee, O Charity ! greatest of all the Christian virtues, I 
lead these poor female orphan little ones ! All the orphans 
are thine ; thou art the true nursing mother of all ! Take 
all by the hand and bless them ; but, O nursing mother ! 
let the poor female orphan, in these evil times, in this chill 
winter of woe, be thy chosen child ! Take her to thy arms, 
and press her close to thy sweet bosom ! 

We are beautifully told in sacred biography that "ease 
and affluence generally harden the heart. If it be well 
with the selfish man himself, he little cares what others en- 
dure. But religion teaches another lesson. ' Love to God, 
whom we have not seen,' will always be productive of 'love 
to men, whom we have seen.' From the root of faith many 
kindred stems spring up ; and all bring forth fruit. There 
arises the stately plant of heavenly-mindedness, producing the 
golden apples of self-government, self-denial, and contempt 
of the world ; and close by its side, and sheltered by its 
branches, gentle sympathy expands its blossoms and breathes 
its perfumes — consolation to the afflicted and relief to the 
miserable !" You have the " golden apples," whose u sym- 
pathy" expands these blossoms and breathes these per- 
fumes ! 



CXOII. 

THE NECESSITY FOR THE UNION AS IT WAS. 
J. L. Dawson 

America, comprising the States which now are, and those 
yet to be, is the great theatre of modern enterprise and 
political experiment. She must be either republican or 
despotic. If we yield our theory of State rights, and union 
of unlimited powers, we surrender the great principle of 
free government, and may prepare, first, for a limited mon- 
archy in the shape of a consolidated government, and even- 
tually for a despotism. Our safety and prosperity as a 
nation depend entirely upon the inflexible fidelity with 
which we adhere and maintain the great boundaries of 
power, as I have endeavored to point them out. The Union 



sterling's southern orator. 243 

is not a union of force. It cannot be perserved by force. 
It rests upon interest and the mutual attachment of the 
members. 

When we look, sir, at the unexampled progress of our 
country in the past, in the limited portion of it brought 
under settlement, and consider the vast area still open for 
occupation and development, what powerful inducements 
do we not see for the preservation of the Union ! Our 
territory, embracing an area of nearly three million square 
miles, is equal to that of Europe. In natural wealth, and 
in the distribution of the great highways of intercourse 
afforded by water communication, it surpasses any quarter 
of the globe. In its abundance of the precious metals and 
minerals, in coal, iron, lead, copper, and petroleum, the 
material of labor, it is the marvel of the world. Its agri- 
cultural capabilities, extending through every variety of 
climate and production which belong to the temperate zone, 
are equally unrivalled. Under the influence of our free 
institutions, the development of our industry has kept pace 
with our natural advantages. We vie with the oldest and 
most civilized of existing nations in the produce of the use- 
ful and ornamental arts, in valuable inventions, and in 
works of intellect and art. To united America the world 
owes the steamboat, the electric telegraph, and the monitor. 
By the genius of an American the cable binds by electric 
ties the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and in another 
lustrum an iron band will connect the great oceans which 
wash the shores of our continent ; and the patriot, in the full 
exaltation of his heart, may stand upon the golden shores 
of the Pacific, and there witness the new direction which 
will then be given to the great commercial current of the 
world. The government has still a thousand millions of 
acres of unoccupied land, and our area is capable of sup- 
porting a population as great in number. Sir, it is in our 
power to realize all .this, and more than our wildest dreams 
have pictured. It can be done, but only by preserving in 
their purity the institutions transmitted us by our fathers 
and now in our responsible keeping 

We know the story of our colonial history and our strug- 
gle for independence, and for the establishment of our pre- 
sent system of constitutional government. Let it be re- 
membered that revolution is a word popular in every lan- 
guage, and that decay is marked on all the works of man. 



244 sterling's southern orator. 

That the greatest of American writers, as a check on human 
ambition, has pointed to Westminster Abbey, which contains 
the tombs of so many illustrious Britons, as the " empire of 
death," where the greatest name perishes from record and 
recollection, and " its very monument becomes a ruin." Such 
is the fate of nations as well as of individuals. Greece, 
the early home of the arts and the sciences, owed her dis- 
tinction to her republican institutions, as well as to the re- 
public of letters ; but with civil dissensions came corrup- 
tion, and civil war wreaked its vengeance upon her fair fields 
and beautiful cities. The Turk has revelled amid her bro- 
ken statuary and fallen columns. Rome, a nation that laid 
broad and deep the foundation of a lofty civilization, whose 
poets, orators, statesmen, and historians shone like the 
milky path in the heavens, and whose works are models at 
the present day, yielded to a similar spirit, and her power 
and glory have long since departed. 

Shall this noble experiment of free government, this 
model republic, in the morning of its existence, be doomed 
to share a similar fate, and liberty find a grave in the land 
that has been crimsoned with the blood of her martyrs, 
and contains within her bosom the ashes of her Washington ? 
No ! Let young America rise superior to the shackles of 
party and sectional interest, and with renewed energy and 
patriotic devotion cling to the constitution of our fathers 
as our only hope, as the mariner clings to the last plank 
when night and tempest close around him. 



- 



CXCIII. 
THE FOLLY OF INFIDELITY.— Dr. Dwight. 

Educated infidels covet the character of men of taste ; 
and boast of possessing it in a superior degree. The pri- 
mary objects of taste are novelty, grandeur, beauty, and be- 
nevolence. The three former are extensively diffused over 
the natural world ; the moral world is replenished with 
them all. 

The beauty and grandeur of the natural world ; the beau- 
ty of the landscape and of the sky ; the grandeur of the storm, 
the torrent, the thunder, and the volcano ; the magnificence 



sterling's southern orator. 245 

of mountains and the ocean; and the sublimities of the 
heavens, may undoubtedly be relished by the mind of an 
infidel as really as by that of a Christian. But how insig- 
nificant are even these splendid scenes of nature if the uni- 
verse is only a lifeless mass — a corpse devoid of an animat- 
ing principle ! 

How changed is the scene, how enhanced the sublimi- 
ty, when our thoughts discern that an infinite Mind formed, 
preserves, controls, and quickens the whole ; that this Mind 
is everywhere present ; lives, sees, acts, directs, and blesses 
the being whom it has made ; that, if we ascend into heav- 
en, God is there / if we go down to hell, lo, He is there I 
if toe take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea, even there His hand loill lead lis and 
His right hand to ill hold us. At the same time, how infin- 
itely more sublime is such a Mind than all the works which 
it has created ! 

In the moral world the loss of the infidel is entire. Of 
the beauty and greatness of that world they form no con- 
ception. For these objects their taste is not begun. The 
pleasures derived from this source are the privilege only of 
minds which are invested with moral beauty, and adorned 
with the loveliness of the Gospel. 

In the field of intellectual enjoyment they are not more 
happy. Their learning is usually mischievous to them, 
and their science of no value ; for both serve only to in- 
flate them with pride, and estrange them from their Maker. 

What is the world in the eye of an infidel ? A j>roduct of 
fate, chance, or necessity ; without design ; without govern- 
ment ; without a God : its inhabitants born, none knows 
why ; and destined to go, none knows whither. 

Of duty, virtue, worship, acceptance with God, and the re- 
ward of obedience, they know, and choose to know, noth- 
ing. To them the moral universe is a chaos. The Gospel, 
looking on this mass of confusion, has said, "Let there be 
light ; " and there is light, ' 



246 sterling's southern orator. 

CXCIV. 
THE SURPRISE OF DEATH.— Massillon. 

The surprise which you have to fear is not one of those 
rare, singular events which happen to but a few unhappy 
persons, and which it is more prudent to disregard than to 
provide for. It is not that an instantaneous, sudden death 
may seize you — that the thunder of heaven may fall upon 
you — that you may be buried under the ruins of your 
houses — that a shipwreck may overwhelm you in the deep ; 
nor do I speak of those misfortunes whose singularity ren- 
ders them more terrible, but at the same time less to be 
apprehended. 

It is a familiar event ; there is not a day but furnishes 
you with examples of it ; almost all men are surprised by 
death ; all see it approach when they think it most distant ; 
all say to themselves, like the fool in the Gospel : " Soul, 
take thine ease, thou hast much goods laid up for many 
years." 

Thus have died your neighbors, your friends, almost all 
those of whose death you have been informed; all have 
left you in astonishment at the suddenness of their depart- 
ure. You have sought reasons for it in the imprudence of 
the person while sick, in the ignorance of physicians, in the 
choice of remedies ; but the best and indeed the only rea- 
son is, that the day of the Lord always cometh by sur- 
prise. 

The earth is like a large field of battle where you are 
every day engaged with the enemy ; you have happily es- 
caped -to-day, but you have seen many lose their lives who 
promised themselves to escape as you have done. To-mor- 
row you must again enter the lists : who has assured you 
that fortune, so fatal- to others, will always be favorable to 
you alone ? And since you must perish there at last, are 
you reasonable in building a firm and permanent habitation 
upon the very spot which is destined to be your grave ? 

Place yourselves in whatever situation you please, there 
is not a moment of time in which death may not come, as 
it has to many others in similar situations. 

There is no action of renown which may not be termi- 
nated by the eternal darkness of the grave : Herod was cut 



sterling's SOUTHERN ORATOR. 247 

off in the midst of the foolish applauses of his people. No 
public day which may not finish with your funeral pomp : 
Jezebel was thrown headlong from the window of her pal- 
ace the very day that she had chosen to show herself with 
unusual ostentation. No delicious feast which may not 
bring death to you : Belshazzar lost his life when seated at 
a sumptuous banquet. ISTo sleep which may not be to you 
the sleep of death : Holofernes, in the midst of his army, 
a conqueror of kingdoms and provinces, lost his life by an 
Israelitish woman when asleep in his tent. ISTo crime 
which may not finish your crimes : Zimri found an infamous 
death in the tents of the daughters of Midian. No -sick- 
ness which may not terminate your days : you very often 
see the slightest infirmities resist all applications of the 
healing art, deceive the expectations of the sick, and sud- 
denly turn to death. 

In a word, imagine yourselves in any circumstances of 
life wherein you may ever be placed, and you will hardly 
be able to reckon the number of those who have been sur- 
prised by death when in like circumstances ; and you have 
no warrant that you shall not meet with the same fate. 
You acknowledge this ; you own it to be true ; but this 
avowal, so terrible in itself, is only an acknowledgment 
which custom demands of you, but which never leads you 
to a single precaution to guard against the danger. 



cxcv. 

THE BIBLE ABOVE ALL PRICE.— Rev. Edward Payson. 

In the fabulous records of pagan antiquity we read of* a 
mirror endowed with properties so rare that, by looking 
into it, its possessor could discover any object which he 
wished to see, however remote ; and discover with equal 
ease persons and things above, below, behind, and before 
him. Such a mirror, but infinitely more valuable than this 
fictitious glass, do we really possess in the Bible. By em- 
ploying this mirror in a proper manner, we may discern 
objects and events, past, present, and to come. 

Here we may contemplate the all-enfolding circle of the 
Eternal Mind ; and behold a most perfect portrait of Him 



248 sterling's southern orator. 

whom no mortal eye hath seen, drawn by his own unerring 
hand. Piercing into the deepest recesses of eternity, we 
may behold Him, existing independent and alone, previous 
to the first exertion of His creating energy. We may see 
heaven, the habitation of His holiness and glory, " dark 
with the excessive brightness" of His presence; and hell, 
the prison of His justice, with no other light than that 
which the fiery billows of His wrath cast, " pale and dread- 
ful," serving only to render u darkness visible." 

Here, too, we may witness the birth of the world which 
we inhabit ; stand, as it were, by its cradle ; and see it grow 
up from infancy to manhood under the forming hand of its 
Creator. We may see light at His summons starting into 
existence, and discovering a world of waters without a 
shore. Controlled by His word, the waters subside ; and 
islands and continents appear, not as now, clothed with ver- 
dure and fertility, but sterile and naked as the sands of 
Arabia. 

Again He speaks ; and the landscape appears, uniting 
the various beauties of spring, summer, and Autumn ; and 
extending further than the eye can reach. Still all is silent ; 
not even the hum of the insect is heard ; the stillness of 
death pervades creation; till, in an instant, songs burst 
from every grove ; and the startled spectator, raising his 
eyes from the carpet at his feet, sees the air, the earth, and 
the sea filled with life and activity in a thousand various 
forms. 

By opening this volume, we may, at any time, walk in 
the garden of Eden with Adam ; sit in the ark with Noah ; 
share the hospitality or witness the faith of Abraham ; as- 
cend the mount of God with Moses ; unite in the secret 
devotions of David ; or listen to the eloquent and impas- 
sioned address of St. Paul. Nay, more; we may here con- 
verse with Him who spake as never man spake ; participate 
with the spirits of the just made perfect in the employments 
and happiness of heaven. 

Destroy this volume, as the enemies of human happiness 
have vainly endeavored to do, and you render us profoundly 
ignorant of our Creator ; of the formation of the world 
which we inhabit ; of the origin and progenitors of our 
race ; of our present duty and future destination ; and con- 
sign us through life to the dominion of fancy, doubt, and 
conjecture. 



sterling's southern orator. 249 

Destroy this volume, and you rob us of the consolatory 
expectation, excited by its predictions, that the stormy 
cloud, which has so long hung over a suffering world, will 
at length be scattered ; you forbid us to hope that the hour 
is approaching, when nation shall no more lift up sword 
against nation ; and righteousness, peace, and holy joy 
shall universally prevail ; and allow us to anticipate noth- 
ing but a constant succession of wars, revolutions, crimes, 
and miseries, terminating only with the end of time. 

Destroy this volume, and you deprive us, at a single 
blow, of religion, with all the animating consolations, 
hopes, and prospects which it affords ; and leave us nothing 
but the liberty of choosing (miserable alternative !) between 
the cheerless gloom of infidelity and the monstrous sha- 
dows of paganism ; you unpeople heaven ; bar forever its 
doors against the wretched posterity of Adam ; restore to 
the king of terrors his fatal sting ; bury hope in the same 
grave w r hich receives our bodies ; consign all who have died 
before us to eternal sleep or endless misery ; and allow us 
to expect nothing at death but a similar faith. In a word, 
destroy this volume, and you take from us at once every 
thing which prevents existence from becoming of all curses 
the greatest. You degrade man to a situation from which 
he may look with envy to " the brutes that perish." 



CXCVI. 

THE DEATH OF HON. HUGH L. WHITE.— W. C. Preston. 

I do not know, Mr. President, whether I am entitled to 
the honor I am about to assume in seconding the resolu- 
tions which have just been offered by the senator from 
Tennessee, in honor of his late distinguished colleague ; and 
yet, sir, I am not aware that any one present is more entitled 
to the melancholy honor, if it belongs to long acquaintance, 
to sincere admiration, and to intimate intercourse. If these 
circumstances do not entitle me to speak, I am sure every 
senator will feel, in the emotions which swell his own 
bosom, an apology for my desire to relieve my own, by 
bearing testimony to the virtues and talents, the long ser- 
vices and great usefulness, of Judge White. 



250 sterling's southern orator. 

My infancy and youth were spent in a region contiguous 
to the sphere of his earlier fame and usefulness. As long as 
I can remember any thing, I remember the deep confidence 
he had inspired as a wise and upright judge, in which sta- 
tion no man ever enjoyed a purer reputation, or established 
a more implicit reliance in his abilities and honesty. There 
was an antique sternness and justness in his character. By 
a general consent he was called Cato. Subsequently, at a 
period of our public affairs very analogous to the present, he 
occupied a position which placed him at the head of the 
financial institutions of East-Tennessee. He sustained them 
by his individual character. The name of Hugh L. White 
was a guarantee that never failed to attract confidence. 
Institutions were sustained by the credit of an individual, 
and the only wealth of that individual was his character. 
From this more limited sphere of usefulness and reputation, 
he was first brought to this more conspicuous stage as a 
member of an important commission on the Spanish treaty, 
in which he was associated with Mr. Tazwell and Mr. King. 
His learning, his ability, his firmness, and industry im- 
mediately extended the sphere of his reputation to the 
boundaries of the country. Upon the completion of that 
duty, he came into this Senate. Of his career here, I need 
not speak. His grave and venerable form is even now be- 
fore us — that air of patient attention, of grave delibera- 
tion, of unrelaxed firmness. Here his position w T as of the 
highest — beloved, respected, honored ; always in his place — 
always prepared for the business in hand — always bringing 
to it the treasured reflections of a sedate and vigorous un- 
derstanding. Over one department of our deliberations he 
exercised a very peculiar control. In the management of 
our complex and difficult relations with the Indians we all 
deferred to him, and to this he addressed himself with 
unsparing labor, and with a wisdom, a patient benevo- 
lence that justified and vindicated the confidence of the 
Senate. 

In private life he was amiable and ardent. The current of 
his feelings was warm and strong. His long familiarity with 
public affairs had not damped the natural ardor of his tem- 
perament. We all remember the deep feeling with which 
he so recently took leave of this body, and how profoundly 
that feeling was reciprocated. The good-will, the love, the 
respect which we bestowed upon him then now give depth 



251 

and energy to the mournful feelings with which we offer a 
solemn tribute to his memory. 



cxovn. 

THE MILITARY GENIUS OF WASHINGTON. 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

Such were the means with which he wrested a mighty 
empire from the most powerful nation on earth. If then, as 
I have said before, military genius is to be measured by 
what it accomplished, need we fear the comparison between 
Washington and the most distinguished captains of the 
world ? 

If I chose, I might run the parallels between Washington 
and the great Frederick, or the still greater Napoleon, and 
show, by comparing their achievements with their means, 
that the proportional success of Washington was, perhaps, 
greater than either. They made war on a larger scale, their 
manoeuvres were grander, their battles mightier and far 
more imposing ; yet neither of them produced results from 
their military operations so important in their probable 
effects upon the future destiny of man, or so likely to be 
permanent or enduring. Both of them possessed large 
means, and neither respected moral restraints or barriers, if 
it was necessary to free them for military success, and the 
same may be said of nearly all the great captains of the 
world, with the exception of Washington. Upon his mili- 
tary escutcheon there rests neither stain nor blot. Amongst 
the shields of all the great military chiefs, Washington's 
needs neither name nor motto to identify, for it is to be 
known by its spotless brightness. 



CXCVIII. 

DEATH OP WILLIAM WIRT.— D. Webster. 

It is announced to us that one of the oldest, one of the 
ablest, one of the most distinguished members of this bar, 
lias departed this mortal life. William Wirt is no more! 



252 sterling's southern orator 

He lias this day closed a professional career, among the 
longest and the most brilliant which the distinguished 
members of the profession in the United States have at any 
time accomplished. Unsullied in every thing which regards 
professional honor and integrity, patient of labor, and rich 
in those stores of learning which are the reward of patient 
labor and patient labor only, and, if equalled, yet certainly 
allowed not to be excelled in fervent, animated, and per- 
suasive eloquence, he has left an example which those who 
seek to raise themselves to great heights of professional 
eminence will hereafter emulonsly study. Fortunate, in- 
deed, will be the few who shall imitate it successfully. 

As a public man, it is not our peculiar duty to speak of 
Mr. Wirt here. His character in that respect belongs to 
his country, and to the history of his country. And, sir, 
if we were to speak of him in his private life, and in his 
social relations, all we could possibly say of his urbanity, 
his kindness, the faithfulness of his friendships, and the 
warrnth of his affections, would hardly seem sufficiently 
strong and glowing to do him justice, in the feeling and 
judgment of those who, separated now forever from his 
embraces, can only enshrine his memory in their bleeding 
hearts. Nor may we, sir, more than allude to that other 
relation which belonged to him, and belongs to us all : that 
high and paramount relation which connects man with 
Ids Maker ! It may be permitted us, however, to have the 
pleasure of recording his name as one who felt a deep sense 
of religious duty, and who placed ah his hopes of the future 
in the truth and in the doctrines of Christianity. 






CXCIX. 
THE SURE ROAD TO SUCCESS.— William Gaston. 



Deeply rooted principles of probity, confirmed habits of 
industry, and a determination to rely on one's own ex- 
ertions constitute, then, the great preparation for the dis- 
charge of the duties of man, and the best security for 
performing them with honor to one's self and benefit to 
other:-. But, it may be asked, what is there in such a life 



STERLING S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 253 

of never-ending toil, effort, and privation, to recommend it 
to the acceptance of the young and the gay ? Those who 
aspire to heroic renown may, indeed, make up their minds 
to embrace these " hard doctrines;" hut it may be well 
questioned, whether happiness is not preferable to great- 
ness, and enjoyment more desirable than distinction. Let 
others, if they will, toil up "the steep where fame's proud 
temple shines afar," Ave choose rather to sport in luxurious 
ease and careless glee in the valley below. It is, indeed, on 
those who aspire to eminence that these injunctions are in- 
tended to be pressed with the greatest emphasis, not only 
because a failure in them would be more disastrous than in 
others, but because they are exposed to greater and more 
numerous dangers of error. But it is a sad mistake to sup- 
pose that they are not suited to all, and are not earnestly 
urged upon all, however humble their pretensions or mod- 
erate their views. Happiness as well as greatness, enjoy- 
ment as well as renown, have no friends so sure as integrity, 
diligence, and independence. We are not placed here to 
waste our days in wanton riot or inglorious ease, with 
appetites perpetually gratified and never palled, exempted 
from all care and solicitude, with life ever fresh and joys 
ever new. He who has fitted us for our condition, and 
assigned to us its appropriate duties, has not left His work 
unfinished, and omitted to provide a penalty for the neglect 
of our obligations. Labor is not more the duty than the 
blessing of man. Without it, there is neither mental nor 
physical vigor, health, cheerfulness, nor animation ; neither 
the eagerness of hope, nor the capacity to enjoy. Every 
human being must have some object to engage his atten- 
tion, excite his wishes, and rouse him to action, or he sinks, 
a prey to listlessness. For want of proper occupations, see 
strenuous idleness resorting to a thousand expedients — the 
race-course, the bottle, or the gaming-table, the frivolities 
of fashion, the debasements of sensuality, the petty con- 
tentions of envy, the grovelling pursuits of avarice, and all 
the various distracting agitations of vice. Call you these 
enjoyments? Is such the happiness which it is so dreadful 
to forego ? 

"Vast happiness enjoy thy gay allies! 
A youth of follies, an old age of cares, 
Young yet enervate ; old yet never wise ; 

Yav pastes their vigor, and their mind impairs. 



254 sterling's southern orator. 

Vain, idle, dissolute, in thoughtless ease, 

Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend ; 

All wretched, hopeless to the evil days, 

With sorrow to the verge of life they tend ; 

Grieved with the present, of the past ashamed ; 

They live, and are despised ; they die, no more are named." 



cc. 

INTEMPERANCE.— E. Everett. 

Next come the ravages of this all-destroying vice on the 
health of its victims. You see them resolved, as it were, 
to anticipate the corruption of their natures. They cannot 
wait to get sick and die. They think the worm is slow in 
his approach, and sluggish at his work. They wish to re- 
convert the dust, before their hour comes, into its primitive 
deformity and pollution. My friend called it a partial 
death. I would rather call it a double death, by which they 
drag about with them, above the grave, a mass of diseased, 
decaying, aching clay. They will not only commit suicide, 
but do it in such a way as to be the witnesses and con- 
scious victims of the cruel process of self-murder; doing it 
by degrees — by inches; quenching the sight, benumbing 
the brain, laying down the arm of industry to be cut off; 
and changing a fair, healthy, robust frame for a shrinking, 
suffering, living corpse, with nothing of vitality but the 
power of suffering, and with every thing of death but its 
peace. 

Then follows the wreck of property — the great object of 
human pursuit; the temporal ruin, which comes, like an 
avenging angel, to waste the substance of the intemperate; 
which crosses their threshold, commissioned to plague them 
with all the horrors of a ruined fortune and blasted pros- 
pect ; and passes before their astonished sight, in the dread 
array of affairs perplexed, debts accumulated, substance 
squandered, honor tainted — wife, children, cast upon the 
mercy of the world — and he, who should have been their 
guardian and protector, dependent for his unearned daily 
bread on those to whom he is a burden and a curse. 

Bad as all this is, much as it is, it is neither the greatest 
nor the worst part of the aggravations of the crime of in- 



sterling's southern orator. 255 

temperance. It produces consequences of still more awful 
moment. It first exasperates the passions, and then takes 
off from them the restraints of the reason and will, mad- 
dens and then unchains the tiger, ravening for blood; 
tramples all the intellectual and moral man under the feet 
of the stimulated clay; lays the understanding, the kind 
affections, and the conscience in the same grave with pros- 
perity and health ; and, having killed the body, kills the 
soul! 



CCI. 

THE CLOSE OF WASHINGTON'S LIFE. — Willis G. Clahk. 

But the crowning glory of "Washington's course was its 
close. Nothing could be more glorious than such a life 
but such a death. Encircled by his family, w r atched by 
eyes that loved him, and attended with tender ministra- 
tions, his body parted from his soul, and that immortal 
guest of his earthly tabernacle ascended to heaven. As 
that hour approached, his contentment and peace w T ere 
indescribable. He saw, if his thoughts were then momen- 
tarily of earth, through the long vista of coming years, the 
grandeur and beauty of a new republic, made free by his 
hand ; teeming with all kind of riches, and filling with a 
virtuous and well-governed people. How beautiful a pros- 
pect ! We read, of late, of the death of a king of Europe, 
W'ho, when on his dying pillow, caused a mirror to be 
placed near his bed, that he might see his army defile in 
their glittering uniforms before him; an insubstantial pic- 
ture — mere shadows on glass, showing, in a most strik- 
ing emblem, how the glory of this world passeth away. 
But Washington had retired from his armies; throughout 
the land, 

" Glad Peace was tinkling 1 in the farmer's bell, 
And singing with the reaners : " 

and he had no regret in his hour of departure. 

Can we scarcely refrain from allowing to that hour the 
unutterable splendor of an apotheosis ? lie had fought his 



256 sterling's southern orator. 

warfare ; he had left his testimony for the rights of men 
and obedience to Heaven ; and is it too much to imagine 
him looking, at his last moment, toward heaven, with his 
dying eyes, and exclaiming with chastened rapture : 

" What means yon blaze on high ? 
The empyrean sky, 
Like the rich veil of some proud fane, is rending ; 

I see the star-paved land, 

Where all the angels stand, 
Even to the highest height, in burning rows ascending ; 

Some with their wings outspread, 

And bowed the stately head, 
As on some errand of God's love departing, 
Like flames from evening conflagration starting ; 
The heralds of Omnipotence are they, 
And nearer earth they come, to waft my soul away ! " 



con. 
CHRISTIANITY.— Bev. B. M. Palmer, D.D. 

Nov/, in glowing contrast with all this, consider the in- 
fluence of Christianity as a religion of simple facts. It 
opens with the grand announcement that God is ; and to 
all presumptuous inquiries into His essence, the rebuke 
comes with a voice of thunder from His pavilion, " Canst 
thou, by searching, find out God ? Canst thou find out the 
Almighty unto perfection ? It is high as heaven, what 
canst thou do ? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know ? 
The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader 
than the sea." If men would inquire into the generation of 
the universe, it turns the eye of faith, beyond the whole 
series of outward phenomena, to God's infinite power, and 
contemplates creation as a great incomprehensible fact : 
" Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed 
by the word of God, so that things which are seen were 
not made of things which do appear." It does not suffer a 
metaphysical trinity like the Hindoo, Buddhist, or Platonic 
to be spun from human speculations, but baptizes us into 
the name of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
It deals in no alTegories of incarnate deities, but declares 



sterling's southern orator. 257 

as fact, " The Lord was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, 
and we beheld His glory." It reveals God, not as a blind 
fate, working concealed behind necessary laws of nature, 
but God moving up and down in human history, " doing 
His pleasure among the armies of heaven, and among the 
inhabitants of earth." It proclaims an historical Christ, 
who lived and wept and died among men, and who now 
reigns " a Prince and a Saviour at the rio;ht hand of the 
Majesty in the heavens." 

It has a philosophy, indeed, which reason' s golden reed 
shall take an eternity to measure, for the length and the 
breadth and the height of it are equal : a philosophy whose 
depth shall not be plumbed this side the gates of heaven. 
Yet, as a religion, its basis is the testimony of God, ac- 
crediting the facts which are level to the peasant and the 
sage alike. Both accept it upon the same grounds, and by 
the same faith in a divine testimony. Thus Christianity 
is competent to be, what paganism is not, a catholic reli- 
gion for man as man, embracing within its comprehension, 
sympathy, and holy fellowship all ranks of social condition. 



CCIII. 

THE HEROES OF MOORE'S CREEK.— Joshua G. Wright. 

And now, my countrymen, my mission is well-nigh accom- 
plished. I have read to you from that bright but bloody 
page in our country's history, which tells of the trials and 
the triumphs of those who made the tented field the scene 
of their glory. Gladly would I turn the leaf and pass to 
that page whereon is written the not less glorious story of 
those civic heroes who, in the revolutionary councils of the 
State, gave form and texture to our government, and have 
made our annals radiant with their wisdom and their gal- 
lantry. Right gladly would I present to your admiring 
gaze your Hooper and your Harnett, and other u bright par- 
ticular stars" of your section, and of your State, who shone 
out so brilliantly from the darkness which then brooded 
over our political firmament. But the waning hour which 
your kindness has allowed me warns me to forbear. 



258 sterling's southern orator. 

Suffice it, then, to say that even such as I have feebly 
sketched to you were the men who lived in the heroic age 
of our land — an age illustrated by deeds worthy of the 
proudest epic the historic muse can chant. Standing, as we 
do, far removed from that day of doubt and danger, and 
reaping, as we are, a rich harvest of blessings from that tree 
of liberty which they planted in this good land, and wa- 
tered by their blood, little do we know of the terrors and 
the trials which they braved and bore in upholding the holy 
cause of liberty. I tell you, my countrymen, that, if such 
men had lived in the foregone ages of antiquity, their deeds 
would have made them demigods, and their fame would 
have carried them to the proudest places in the Pantheon 
of history. Shall we, then, dishonor by forgetfulness that 
" breed of noble bloods," who alike in camp and* council so 
gloriously championed the cause of our country ? Shall 
we, like degenerate sons, bastardize the blood of such sires 
by the disloyalty of ingratitude ? One by one they have 
gone down to the dust they rescued from oppression ; but 
from every sepulchral sod which covers their ashes, me- 
thinks I hear a voice calling upon us to commemorate their 
deeds, and to cherish their memories. I catch that call and 
bear it to you this day, my countrymen. By all the glorious 
memories of the past, by all the cheering anticipations of 
the future, I conjure you to perpetuate the renown of your 
illustrious dead, and to make classic the scenes of their toils 
and their triumphs. 



CCIV 

BRITISH AGGRESSION.— James H. Hammond. 

Sir, I am like the gentleman from Georgia in one respect. 
The officers of the English government have perpetrated 
acts upon our commerce, on the high seas, which we cannot 
permit. These resolutions seem, under one interpretation of 
them, to imply that it is our wish to enter into negotia- 
tions with Great Britain about the right of search or right 
of visitation, and to require of her an open and express 
abandonment of that right. I do not want any negotiations 
with Great Britain, or any discussions with Great Britain, 



sterling's southern orator. 259 

about the right of search or right of visitation. That is a 
subject which is exhausted ; our minds are made up on that 
question ; and we do not wish that the government of Eng- 
land should understand that we consider the question on our 
part as open for any argument. We have made up our 
minds on it. We only wish to negotiate with her about 
these acts. When she refuses to make reparation for them, 
then we will decide whether they are of consequence or 
importance enough, either to our honor or our interest, to 
make them cause of war. Great Britain may be perfectly 
willing to renounce these acts, to disavow them ; and that 
is all we have a right to demand. What her reason may 
be for the commission of these acts is entirely unimportant 
to us. Whether she has done them under any supposed 
emergency, whether she has done them because she feels 
authorized to do them in virtue of any right of search or 
visitation to which she may pretend, is a matter of indiffer- 
ence to us. We may say to her : " Hold your opinions, but 
forbear to do those acts which are injurious to us and for 
which we must make war ; that is all we ask." She is fully 
authorized, so far as I am concerned, to maintain her 
pretensions to visitation and search until time shall wear 
them out and obliterate them. I will not quarrel with her 
for an opinion ; I will not go to war with her for a difference 
of opinion ; but when she undertakes to perform acts under 
those opinions, those acts I am concerned with, and those 
acts I must resist or submit to, as it best suits me. I want 
no discussion about the right of visitation or the right of 
search, and I should think it unworthy of this government 
to enter into any negotiation on that subject. I care not 
upon what grounds she may found her pretensions. All I 
ask of her is, to forbear such action as is injurious to my 
country; and when she has done that, she may weigh as she 
pleases, in her national pride before the world, all these 
sovereign rights of hers about visitation and search on the 
high seas, to the nations who please to submit to them. I 
want to negotiate about these acts, these acts merely, and 
no further negotiation than to inform Great Britain of the 
acts that have been perpetrated or performed by her officers 
on our coast, and to know of her whether she is willing to 
make that reparation which this country thinks it is entitled 
to. I want an answer on that point — no more negotiation 
about it, unless it relates to 'the simple facts that are 



260 STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 

brought in question. Was the attack made ? Under what 
circumstances was it made ? With what aggravations, or 
with what circumstances of mitigation, was it made ? These 
are the only topics of negotiation between us. I want no 
more learning, I want no more diplomacy, upon the ques- 
tion of visitation. I will not ask Great Britain for a re- 
nunciation of that, because I care nothing about it. Upon 
whatever pretensions, high or low, ancient or modern, you 
find a right to stop our ships engaged in lawful commerce 
on the high seas, that thing we will not submit to. As long 
as you entertain these opinions, and hold them as opinions 
merely, we will not quarrel with you about them, however 
erroneous we may think them ; but the moment you attempt 
to act on that or any other pretence, and to perform acts 
injurious to us, we will resist those acts. 



ccv. 
DEATH OF HENRY CLAY.— J. J. Breckinridge. 

Mr. Speaker, the signs of woe around us, and the general 
voice, announce that another great man has fallen. Our 
consolation is, that he was not taken in the vigor of his man- 
hood, but sank into the grave at the close of a long and 
illustrious career. The great statesmen who have filled 
the largest space in the public eye, one by one are passing 
away. Of the three great leaders of the Senate, one alone 
remains, and he must follow soon. We shall witness no 
more their intellectual struggles in the American forum; 
but the monuments of their genius will be cherished as the 
common property of the people, and their names will con- 
tinue to confer dignity and renown upon their country. 

Not less illustrious than the greatest of these w T ill be the 
name of Clay — a name pronounced with pride by Americans 
in every quarter of the globe ; a name to be remembered 
while history shall record the struggles of modern Greece 
for freedom, or the spirit of liberty burn in the South-Ameri- 
can bosom : a living and immortal name — a name that would 
descend to prosterity without the aid of letters, borne by 
tradition from generation to generation. Every memorial 
of such a man will possess a meaning and a value to his 



sterling's southern orator. 261 

countrymen. His tomb will be a hallowed spot. Great 
memories will cluster there, and his countrymen, as they 
visit it, may well exclaim : 

" Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines, 
Shrines to no creed or code confined ; 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 



CCVI. 

THE DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER.— L. Preston. 

Daniel Webster is dead. He died without ever having 
been elevated to the Presidency of the nation. Camillus, 
the second founder of Rome, never enjoyed the consulate; 
but he was not less illustrious because he was not rewarded 
by the fasces and the consular purple. Before the lustre of 
Webster's renown, a merely presidential reputation must 
grow pale. He has not only left a reputation of unsurpass- 
ed lustre in the Senate, but he will also pass down to pos- 
terity as the ablest and most profound jurist of his day. 
As an orator, he had not, as has been correctly observed, 
the vehemence of Demosthenes nor the splendor of Cice- 
ro ; but still Daniel Webster was an orator — an orator 
marked by the characteristics of the Teutonic race — bold, 
massive, and replete with manly force and vigor. His 
writings are marked by a deep philosophy which will cause 
them to be read when the issues that evoked them have 
passed away, and the splendor of an imagination, almost as 
rich as that of Burke, will invest them with attractions 
alike for the political scholar and the man of letters. 

We should not deplore the death of Webster. It is true 
the star has shot from the sphere it illuminated, and is lost 
in the gloom of death; but he sank full of years and hon- 
ors, after he had reached the verge of human life, and be- 
fore his majestic intellect was dimmed or his body bowed 
down by old age. He did not sink into his grave, like Marl- 
borough, amid the mists of dotage; but he went while his 
intellect was unclouded, and the literary remembrances of 
his youth came thronging to the dying bed of their votary. 
Napoleon, when he was expiring at^St. Helena, muttered 



262 STERLING'S SOUTHERN- ORATOR. 

disconnected words of command and battle, that showed 
his turbulent mind still struggled in imaginary conflicts ; 
but gentler spirits brought to the death-bed of the states- 
man of Marshfield more consoling memories as he mur- 
mured, 

" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ;" 

and all the tender and mournful beauties of that inimitable 
elegy clustered around his soul. 



CCVII. 

AN ELOQUENT PERORATION.— Reyerdy Johnson. 

Is the cause one that justifies or excuses a refusal to associ- 
ate politically with Northern brethren ? If it is, where will 
it lead ? No sane man can believe that such legislation can 
now be obtained. If not, the remedy, and the only one left 
to the South, unless she is false to her professed convictions 
of duty, and acts the mere braggart, is secession from 
Congress, and of course from the Union. Is this mere 
theoretical, abstract question — the most abstract, as truly 
said by Governor Cobb, ever presented for political discus- 
sion — to sunder the ties which have so long and gloriously 
kept us together and made us a nation, the wonder and 
admiration of the world ? May the memory and spirit of 
our fathers forbid it ! May the hope of freedom throughout 
Christendom not be blasted by it ! May so foul a dishonor 
never be suffered to tarnish the American name ! Oh ! 
that Choate and Webster were living to animate the hearts 
of their countrymen with their own patriotic fire, and in- 
voke them, as they surely would, to gather around the Union, 
and upon its altar swear perpetual allegiance to it. Oh, 
that they were now here to fill these walls once more, in 
this their country's trial, with their lessons of wisdom and 
duty, and to commend them to national approval by their 
almost superhuman eloquence. But the hope is vain. Let 
us therefore, stimulated by the memories of the great dead, 
nerve ourselves to the struggle. Let us, standing by the 
rights of all under the constitution, maintain those rights 



sterling's southern orator. 263 

with untiring devotion and with scrupulous good faith. 
Let us do all we can to restore our ancient harmony, our 
former fraternity, and, discarding all sectional prejudices, 
demonstrate to the world that we recognize as country- 
men the whole people of the United States, that we know 
but one country, that which is now covered by one glori- 
ous ensign, of all the stripes and the stars, and that we 
will now and forever support the government formed by 
our fathers, for the common defence and general welfare, 
and to secure to them and their posterity the blessings of 
liberty forever. Let us, in the words of a statesman, a 
native of your own noble State, and whose whole life was 
distinguished by eminent services, adhere to this our pur- 
pose with inflexible resolution, as to the horns of the altar. 
Instil its principles with unwearied perseverance into the 
minds of our children, bind our souls and theirs to the 
National Union, as the cords of life are centred in the heart, 
and we surely then will u soar with rapid wing to the sum- 
mit of human glory." 



CCVIII. 

DAVIE AND MOORE.— Akch. D. Muhphey. 

Two individuals, who received their education during 
the war, (Revolution,) were destined to keep alive the rem- 
nant of our literature and prepare the public mind for the 
establishment of this university, (the University of North- 
Carolina.) These were William R. Davie and Alfred Moore. 
Each of them had endeared himself to his country by taking 
an active part in the latter scenes of the war ; and when pub- 
lic order was restored and the courts of justice were opened, 
they appeared at the bar, where they quickly rose to emi- 
nence, and for many years shone like meteors in North-Caro- 
lina. They adorned the courts in which they practised, 
gave energy to the laws, and dignity to the administration 
of justice. Their genius was different, and so was their 
eloquence. Davie took Lord Bolingbroke for his model, and 
Moore, Dean Swift; and each applied himself with so much 
diligence to the study of his model, that literary men could 



264 sterling's southern orator, 

easily recognize in the eloquence of Davie the lofty, flow- 
ing style of Bolingbroke ; and in that of Moore, the plain- 
ness and precision of Swift. They roused the ambition of 
parents and their sons ; they excited emulation among 
ingenuous youth ; they depicted in glowing colors the 
necessity of establishing a public school or university, in 
which the young men of the State should be educated. 
The General Assembly resolved to found a university. I 
was present in the House of Commons when Davie address- 
ed that body upon the bill granting a loan of money to the 
trustees for erecting the buildings of this university ; and 
although more than thirty years have since elapsed, I have 
the most vivid recollections of the greatness of his manner 
and the power of his eloquence on that occasion. In the 
House of Commons he had no rival, and upon all great 
questions which came before that body his eloquence was 
irresistible. The genius and intellectual habits of Moore 
fitted him for the bar rather than a deliberative assembly. 
Public opinion was divided upon the question whether he 
or Davie excelled at the bar. Moore was a small man, neat 
in his dress, and graceful in his manners ; his voice was 
clear and sonorous, his perceptions quick, and his judgment 
almost intuitive ; his style was chaste, and his manner of 
speaking animated. Having adopted Swift as his model, 
his language was always plain. The clearness and energy 
of his mind enabled him, almost without an effort, to disen- 
tangle the most intricate subject, and expose it in all its 
parts to the simplest understanding. He spoke with ease 
and with force, enlivened his discourses with flashes of 
wit, and, where the subject required it, with all the bitter- 
ness of sarcasm. His speeches were short and impressive ; 
when he sat down, every one thought he had said every 
thing that he ought to have said. Davie was a tall, elegant 
man in his person, graceful and commanding in his man- 
ners; his voice was mellow and adapted to the expression 
of every passion ; his mind comprehensive, yet slow in its 
operations, when compared with his great rival. His style 
was magnificent and flowing ; and he had a greatness of 
manner in public speaking which suited his style, and gave 
to his speeches an imposing effect. He was a laborious 
student, arranged his discourses with care, and where the 
subject suited his genius, poured forth a torrent of elo- 
quence that astonished and enraptured his audience. They 



stehlixg's southern orator. 265 

looked upon him with delight, listened to his long, harmo- 
nious periods, caught his emotions, and indulged the ecstasy 
of feeling which fine speaking and powerful eloquence 
alone can produce. He is certainly to be ranked among the 
first orators, and his rival, Moore, among the first advocates, 
which the American nation has produced. 



ccix. 

SUFFERINGS OF THE SOUTH.— G. Dawson. 

Especially did the South suffer in the loss of her young 
men, " the rose and expectancy of the fair young state." 

" The autumn winds rushing 

Waft the leaves that are serest ; 
But our flowers were in flushing 

When the blighting was nearest. 
The hand of the reaper 

Plucks the ears that are hoary ; 
But the voice of the weeper 

Wails manhood in glory/' 

Stripped of their fortunes, suddenly reduced from afflu- 
ence to penury; turned houseless into the world ; driven, 
as it were, forth like dumb cattle to the fields, to take upon 
their shelterless heads the pitiless peltings of the elements, 
and peltings more pitiless still of want and woe ; forced, as 
some were, to hear from the lisping lips of their famishing 
little ones, cries for bread, often when they had not a crumb 
to give them — I ask you, fellow-citizens, when you remem- 
ber all this, and, moreover, that thousands of those who 
suffered thus were as innocent as angels in heaven of hav- 
ing any thing to do with the bringing on the war, have 
they not suffered enough? Must that heart not be an 
obdurate one that will not respect such burdens ? Can it 
be possible that it can be in the heart of the Northern peo- 
ple to wish to see us suffer any more ? I do not believe it. 
My faith is as firm as adamant in the great popular heart of 
the North. I am not one of those who sneer at the heart. 
I prefer to sympathize with that eloquent writer who said : 
12 



266 sterling's southern orator. 

" The velvet moss will grow upon the sterile rock, the mistle- 
toe flourish on the withered branch, the ivy cling to the 
mouldering ruin, and the pine and cedar remain fresh and 
fadeless through all the mutations of the dying years ; and, 
heaven be praised ! something green, something beautiful to 
see and grateful to the soul, will, in the coldest and in the 
darkest hour of fate, still twine its tendrils round the broken 
arches and crumbling altars of the desolate temples of the 
human heart." And so we will find it, if we will trust it. 
I have heard often applied to it such hard names as " iron," 
"steel," " flint," "marble," and "rock;" but if you will 
study its generous impulses, 

" Each, cliord its various tone, 
Each spring its separate "bias," 

I think you will find that, if it is a rock, it is a great 
JEolian rock-harp, strung with a thousand and one sensitive 
strings, and that, when over them the warm breath of affec- 
tion floats, forth music will gush, as water did from that 
rock in the wilderness when it was smitten by the rod of 
Moses. When Douglas was attempting to carry the heart 
of Bruce, in a silver case, to the Holy Land to bury it, he 
was attacked by Turks ; and when the result of the fight 
was becoming doubtful, he took the silver case containing 
the heart and threw it among the ranks of the enemy, say- 
ing : " Go forward, brave heart t)f Bruce, and I will follow 
as I have always done !" Now, if the conservative leaders 
will take the great throbbing heart of the Northern people 
and throw it among the ranks of the Radicals, it will go 
forward, and, if they will follow, the constitution will tri- 
umph. 



ccx. 

MEMORIAL OF THE YOUNG MEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 
S. L. Southard. 

With but few of them am I personally acquainted, and 
must rely, in what I say of them, upon what I know of 
those few, and upon the information received from others, 



sterling's southern orator. 267 

which I regard as sure and safe. And on these I venture 
to assure the Senate that no meeting of young men can be 
collected, in any portion of our wide country, on any occa- 
sion, containing more intelligence, more virtuous purpose, 
more manly and honorable feeling, more decided and ener- 
getic character. What they say they think. What they 
resolve they will accomplish. Their proceedings were ar- 
dent and animated — their resolutions are drawn with spirit ; 
but are such as, I think, may be properly received and re- 
spected by the Senate. They relate to the conduct of the 
executive— to the present condition of the country — to the 
councils which now direct its destinies. They admit that 
older and more mature judgments may better understand 
the science of government and its practical operations, but 
they act upon a feeling, just in itself and valuable in its 
effects, that they are fit to form and express opinions on 
public measures and public principles, which shall be their 
own guide in their present and future conduct ; and they 
express a confident reliance on the moral and physical vigor 
and untamable love of freedom of the young men of the 
United States to save us from despotism, open and avowed, 
or silent, insidious, and deceitful. They were attracted, or 
rather urged, sir, to this meeting, and to the expression of 
their feelings and opinions, by what they saw around, and 
knew of the action of the executive upon the currency and 
prosperity of the country. They have just entered, or are 
about entering, on the busy occupations of manhood, and 
are suddenly surprised by a state of things around them 
new to their observation and experience. Calamity had 
been a stranger in their pathway. They have grown up 
through their boyhood in the enjoyments of present com- 
fort, and the anticipations of future prosperity — their se- 
niors actively and successfully engaged in various occupa- 
tions of the community, and the whole circle of employ- 
ments open before their own industry and hopes — the in- 
stitutions of their country beloved, and their protecting 
influence covering the exertions of all for their benefit and 
happiness. In this State they saw the public prosperity, 
with which alone they were familiar, blasted, and for the 
time destroyed. The whole scene, their whole country was 
changed; they witneSed fortunes filling, homesteads ruined, 
merchants failing, artisans broken, mechanics impoverished, 
all the employments ' on which they were about to enter 



268 sterling's southern orator. 

paralyzed; labor denied to the needy, and reward to the 
industrious; losses of millions of property and gloom set- 
tling where joy and happiness before existed. They felt 
the sirocco pass by and desolate the plains where peace, and 
animation, and happiness exulted. 



ccxi. 
GENERAL SAMUEL HOUSTON.— Thomas H. Benton. 

Just in its origin, valiant and humane in its conduct, 
sacred in its object, the Texian revolt has illustrated the 
Anglo-Saxon character, and gives it new titles to the re- 
spect and admiration of the world. 

It shows that liberty, justice, -valor — moral, physical, and 
intellectual power — discriminate that race wherever it goes. 
Let our America rejoice, let Old England rejoice, that the 
Brazos and Colorado, new and^strange names — streams far 
beyond the western bank of the " Father of Floods " — have 
felt the impress, and witnessed the exploits of a people 
sprung from their loins, and carrying their language, laws, 
and customs, their Magna Charta and its glorious privileges, 
into new regions and far distant climes. Of the individuals 
w^ho have purchased lasting renown in this young war, it 
would be impossible, in this place, to speak in detail, and in- 
vidious to discriminate ; but there is one among them whose 
position forms an exception, and whose early associations 
with myself justify and claim the tribute of a particular 
notice. I speak of him whose romantic victory has given to 
the Jacinto that immortality in grave and serious history 
which the diskos of Apollo had given to it in the fabulous 
pages of the heathen mythology. General Houston was 
born in the State of Virginia, county of Rockbridge ; he 
was appointed an ensign in the army of the United States, 
during the late war with Great Britain, and served in the 
Creek campaign under the banners of Jackson. I was the 
lieutenant-colonel of the regiment to which he belonged, 
and the first field officer to whom #»e reported. I then 
marked in him the same soldierly and gentlemanly qualities 
which have since distinguished his eventful career; frank, 



sterling's southern orator. 269 

generous, brave; ready to do or to suffer whatever the obli- 
gation of civil or military duty imposed ; and always prompt 
to answer the call of honor, patriotism, and friendship. Sin- 
cerely do I rejoice in his victory. It is a victory without 
alloy, and without a parallel, except at New-Orleans. It is 
a victory which the civilization of the age and the honor of 
the human race required him to gain ; for the nineteenth cen- 
tury is not the age in which a repetition of the Goliad mo- 
tives could be endured. Nobly has he answered the requi- 
sition ; fresh and luxuriant are the laurels which adorn his 
brow. 



ccxn. 

EULOGY ON HENRY CLAY.— Rev. C. M. Butleu, D.D., Chap- 
lain U. S. Senate. 

A great mind, a great heart, a great orator, a great 
career, have been consigned to history. She will record 
his rare gifts of deep insight, keen discrimination, clear 
statement, rapid combination, plain, direct, and convincing 
logic. She will love to dwell on that large, generous, mag- 
nanimous, open, forgiving heart. She will linger with fond 
delight on the recorded and traditional stories of an elo- 
quence that was so masterful and stirring, because it was 
but himself struggling to come forth on the living words — 
because, though the words were brave and strong, and 
beautiful and melodious, it was felt that behind them there 
was a soul braver, stronger, more beautiful, and more melo- 
dious than language could express. She will point to a ca- 
reer of statesmanship which has, to a remarkable degree, 
stamped itself on the public policy of the country, and 
reached, in beneficent, practical results, the fields, the looms, 
the commercial marts, and the quiet homes of all the land, 
where his name was with the departed fathers, and is with 
the living children, and will be, with successive generations, 
an honored household word. 

I feel, as a man, the grandeur of this career. Bat as an 
immortal, with this broken Avreck of mortality before me, 
with this scene as the " end-all " of human glory, I feel that 



270 sterling's southern orator. 

no career is truly great but that of him who, whether it he 
illustrious or obscure, lives to the future in the ^present, and 
linking himself to the spiritual world, draws from God the 
life, the rule, the motive, and the reward of all his labor. 
So would that great spirit which has departed say to us, 
could he address us now. So did he realize in the calm 
and meditative close of life. I feel that I but utter the les- 
sons which, living, were his last and best convictions, and 
which, dead, would be, could he speak to us, his solemn ad- 
monitions, when I say that statesmanship is then only glori- 
ous when it is Christian / and that the man is then only 
safe and true to his duty and his soul when the life which 
he lives in the flesh is the life of faith in the Son of God, 



CCXIII. 



VIRGINIA.— D. W. Vookhees. 



Virginia teaches no doubtful lesson on the subject of 
her devotion to the Constitution and the Union. Happy 
are they who sit at her feet and learn wisdom from her pre- 
cepts ! She is rich in historical renown. She rocked the 
cradle of the Union and defended the infant Hercules from 
the grasp of the serpent. Within her bosom repose the 
ashes of those most illustrious in the cause of liberty since 
the song of Miriam arose as a song of deliverance on the 
banks of the Red Sea. The curious traveller threads his 
way amongst the tombs of Westminster Abbey, and on 
either hand sleep kings, conquerors, princes, poets, states- 
men, historians, and philosophers. In that solemn pile ge- 
nius rests from its brilliant triumphs and its exquisite sor- 
rows, and eloquence and learning hallow the spot with the 
glory of intellectual excellence. But the modest eminence 
of Mount Vernon and the quiet heights of Monticello con- 
tain more precious dust than was ever treasured away in the 
" storied urn" of human greatness or the royal sepulchre of 
kings. The soil of this ancient and revered commonwealth 
is rich with the shrines of the mighty. Her children have 
been the tall spirits of the earth, and every mountain is full 
of thrilling memories. The drama of the Revolution closed 



sterling's southern orator. 271 

within her borders. The spirit of American liberty here 
first took assurance of safety, and a permanent existence. 
But the historian who records the various and exalted glo- 
ries of Virginia will find in her loyalty and devotion to the 
Union and the Constitution as it now is something of more 
priceless value, a jewel of more radiant lustre, than any of 
the historical glories with which she is so richly decorated. 
Whatever hereafter may be the policy reluctantly adopted 
by Virginia, no one can charge her with a willing and ready 
desertion of the established order of things. 



ccxiv. 

PLEA FOR THE UNION— 1850.— H. Clay. 

Look at all history — consult her pages, ancient or mod- 
ern ; look at human nature ; look at the contest in which 
you would be engaged in the supposition of war following 
upon the dissolution of the Union, such as I have sug- 
gested ; and I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that 
the final disposition of the whole would be some despot 
treading down the liberties of the people — the final result 
would be the extinction of this last and glorious light which 
is leading all mankind, who are gazing upon it, in the hope 
and anxious expectation that the liberty which prevails 
here will, sooner or later, be diffused throughout the whole 
of the civilized world. Sir, can you lightly contemplate 
these consequences? Can you yield yourself to the tyr- 
anny of passion, amid' dangers which I have depicted in 
colors far too tame, of w T hat the result would be if that 
direful event, to which I have referred, should ever occur ? 
Sir, I implore gentlemen, I adjure them, whether from the 
South or the North, by all that they hold dear in this 
world — by all their love of liberty — by all their veneration 
for their ancestors — by all their regard for posterity — by 
till their gratitude to Him w^ho has bestowed on them such 
unnumbered and countless blessings — by all the duties which 
they owe to mankind — and all the duties which they owe to 
themselves, to pause, solemnly to pause at the edge of the 
before the fearful and dangerous leap be taken 



272 sterling's southern orator. 

into the yawning abyss below, from which none who ever 
take it shall return in safety. 

Finally, Mr. President, and in conclusion, I implore, as 
the best blessing which heaven can bestow upon me, upon 
earth, that, if the direful event of the dissolution of the 
Union is to happen, I shall not survive to see the sad and 
heart-rending spectacle. 



ccxv. 

FUNERAL ADDRESS AT THE GRAVE OF ELISHA MITCH- 
ELL, D.D.— Rt. Rev. James H. Otey, D.D. 

But what has convened this vast assembly ? What has 
brought the people from their homes as far as the eye can 
reach from this proud eminence over all the land below, to 
gather here in solemn silence — seriousness impressed on 
every countenance, and reverence enthroned on every 
brow? The dwellers in vales and on the mountain-tops 
are here. The husbandman has left his plough ; the artisan 
his tools ; the professional man his office; the merchant has 
quit the busy mart of trade; the man of science has closed 
the doors of his study ; the student has laid aside his books 
to come hither! "The bridegroom has come forth from 
his chamber, and the bride from her closet," the fathers and 
mothers of the land are here ! " Young men and maidens, 
"old men and children ; " and .the ministers of the sanctuary 
are here to do honor to this occasion, and in this place, no 
" unfit audience chamber of heaven's King," to consecrate 
the spot, as far as the act of man may, " to deathless fame ! " 
No martial music breaks upon the hearing, stirring the 
hearts of men, and gathering armed hosts in the serried 
ranks of battle; no sound of the trumpet nor voice of 
prophet has collected this mighty concourse of living men ! 
I never saw such an assembly ; I never expect to see the 
like again ! I never read of any thing in history approach- 
ing its equal, or its parallel, except the gathering of the 
hosts of Israel on Mount Carmel at the call of Elijah ! In 
the physical features of the scene here presented to the eye, 
the proportions of grandeur and beauty more than equal 
those of Carmel. The moral grandeur of the object, and 



sterling's southern orator. 273 

of the assembly gathered by Elijah, far surpass ours. In- 
deed, they were never equalled in our world except when 
God descended upon Sinai, and, surrounded by terrible em- 
blems of power and glory, proclaimed His law to His people. 
But what has moved us, as by the spirit of one man, to 
be here to-day! From the banks of the majestic Missis- 
sippi in the west, and from the shores where thunders the 
Atlantic wave in the east, we have met on this midway 
ground. For what ? To do homage to goodxess, my 
countrymen ! Some of us to pay the tribute of our love in 
tears to the memory of one who was as dear to us as a 
father ! Many of us who in years long past could appro- 
priate the language of the prophet in behalf of Israel, and 
say, " My Father ! thou art the guide of my youth." All 
of us to testify our appreciation of merit, and by one act to 
link forever the honored name of Elisha Mitchell with this 
monarch of mountains. Here, then, and to-day, we commit 
to the ground all that remains of his perishable body. 
Here, in the face of heaven, in the light of yonder sun, 
whose radiance beams brightly on this spot when darkness 
veils the world below, and the storm-cloud with its fringes 
of fire girdles the mountain waist ; in the name of truth, 
honor, and justice; by right of prior discovery; by merit 
of being the first to claim the honor of actual measurement 
and mathematical determination; by virtue of labors en- 
dured with unremitting patience, and terminated only by * 
death ; we consecrate this mountain by the name of Mt. 
Mitchell, and we call upon you to speak your approval, 
and say Amen ! Yes, we consecrate it — a monument raised 
to the memory of Dr. Elisha Mitchell, to a fame, 

" Unwasting, deathless, and sublime, 
That will remain while lightnings quiver, 
Or stars the hoary summits climb, 
Or rolls the thunder chariot of Eternal Time." 



CCXVI. 

BRITISH REFUGEES.— Patrick Henhy. 

Ixstead of refusing permission to the refugees to return, 
it is your true policy to encourage immigration to this 
country by every means in your power. Sir, you must 



274 



STERLING S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 



have men. You cannot get along without them. Those 
heavy forests of timber, under which your lands are groan- 
ing, must be cleared away. Those vast riches which cover 
the face of your soil, as well as those which lie hid in its 
bosom, are to be developed and gathered only by the skill and 
enterprise of men. Your timber must be worked up into 
ships, to transport the productions of the soil, and find the 
best markets for them abroad. Your great want is the 
want of men; and these you must have, and will have 
speedily, if you are wise. 

Do you ask how you are to get them ? Open your doors, 
sir, and they will come. The population of the Old World 
is full to overflowing. That population is ground, too, by 
the oppressions of the governments under which they live. 
They are already standing on tiptoe upon their native 
shores, and looking to your coasts with a wishful and long- 
ing eye. They see here a land blessed with natural and 
political advantages, which are not equalled by those of any 
other country on earth ; a land on which a gracious Provi- 
dence hath emptied the horn of abundance; a land over 
which peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and 
where content and plenty lie down at every door. 

They see something still more attractive than this. They 
see a land in which Liberty has taken up her abode ; that 
Liberty whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, ex- 
isting only in the fancies of the poets. They see her here, 
a real divinity; her altars rising on every -hand, throughout 
these happy States ; her glories chanted by three millions 
of tongues ; and the whole region smiling under her blessed 
influence. Let but this celestial goddess, Liberty, stretch 
forth her fair hand toward the people of the Old World, tell 
them to come, and bid them welcome, and you will see 
them pouring in from the north, from the south, from the 
east, and from the west. Your wilderness will be cleared 
and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be 
filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the 
powers of any adversary. 

But gentlemen object to any accession from Great Bri- 
tain, and particularly to the return of the British refu- 
gees. Sir, I feel no objection to the return of those deluded 
people. They have, to be sure, mistaken their own inter- 
ests most wonderfully, and most woefully have they suf 
fered the punishment due to their offences. But the rela- 



sterling's southern orator. 275 

tions which we bear to them and to their native country 
are now changed. Their king hath acknowledged our inde- 
pendence. The quarrel is over. Peace hath returned, and 
found us a free people. 

Let us have the magnanimity to lay aside our antipathies 
and prejudices, and consider the subject in a political light. 
They are an enterprising, moneyed people. They will be 
serviceable in taking oft* the surplus produce of our lands, 
and supplying us with necessaries during the infant state 
of our manufactures. Even if they be inimical to us in 
point of feeling and principle, I can see no objection, in a 
political view, to making them tributary to our advantage. 
And as I have no prejudices to prevent my making use of 
them, .so I have no fear of any mischief they can do us. 
Afraid of them ! What, sir, shall we, who have laid the 
proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps f 



CCXVII. 
EEMEDY FOE SECTIONAL HOSTILITY.— G. Dawson. 

Between the people of the North and the people of the^ 
South, there are certain bonds of sympathy which are deli- 
cate and holy, and, under proper culture, may be made to 
expand and grow, widen and deepen, until they will hold 
in their strong clasp every heart in the wide land, and bind 
us affectionately together. One of these bonds is our afflic- 
tions, our common sorrows. 

The South was not the only sufferer in the war. The 
North lost many of her bravest and noblest sons. Even 
amid the storm of battle, death seemed ever aiming his fatal 
shafts at bright marks. Therefore let the North and the 
South meet as friends in affliction, having common griefs, 
sacred griefs. Let us consign to oblivion's bottomless gulf 
the past with all of its trials and troubles, hatreds and hor- 
rors, and let us teach our lips the language of love and not 
that of strife. Let us recur as seldom as possible to themes 
mutually distasteful and disagreeable, and let our allusions 
to those who have fallen on either side always be respectful 
and kind. Every man who fell fighting where his conscience 



276 sterling's southern orator. 

told him duty called him, won a name that generations yet 
to be born will honor, and let us not desecrate the ashes of 
these brave martyrs by the rude trampling of unholy feet. 

" On fame's eternal camping ground 
Their silent tents are spread ; 
Let glory guard with, solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead." 

Woman is earth's angel. She is the morning star of man's 
infancy, the day star of his manhood, and the evening star 
of his old age. This is her golden opportunity to play an 
angel's part in her country's salvation. Let but the daugh- 
ters of the North and the daughters of the South meet with 
their floral offerings annually on some great national me- 
morial day on the fields where our heroes " fought their 
last battle and sleep their last sleep," and let their flowers 
mingle their fragrance as they fall together with their tears 
upon the lowly pillows of the loved and lost. Let them 
kneel together there, and let their prayers for the welfare 
of their common country rise, as it were, on the wings of 
one breath, and soar to heaven ; angels will be waiting at 
the portals of the skies to bear them to the footstools of the 
great white throne. God will hear and answer them, and 
fraternal feeling will revisit this riven land, man will recog- 
nize again in man his brother, sectional prejudice will pass 
gradually away, radicalism will be rebuked, and peace and 
prosperity, harmony and happiness, will crown a national 
glory and grandeur without a parallel in the annals of 
ages. 



CCXVIII. 
MONUMENT TO HENRY CLAY.— T. F. Maeshall. 

The friends of Henry Clay meditate the construction of 
a monument to mark the spot where repose the remains of 
that frail tenement which once held in his fiery soul. It 
will be honorable to them, and will form a graceful orna- 
ment to the green woods which surround the city of which 
he had himself been so long the living ornament, but it 
will be useless to him or to his fame. He trusted neither 



sterling's southern orator. 277 

himself nor his fame to mechanical hands or perishable 
materials. They may lay their pedestals of granite — they 
may raise their polished columns till they pierce and flout 
the skies — they may cover their marble pillars all over with 
the blazonry of his deeds, and trophies of his triumphant 
genius, and surmount them with images of his form wrought 
by the cunningest hands — it matters not — he is not there. 
The prisoned eagle has burst the bars and soared away 
from strife, and conflict, and calumny. 

He is not dead — he lives. I mean not the life eternal in 
yon other world of which religion teaches ; but here on earth 
he lives the life which men call fame — that life the hope of 
which forms the solace of high ambition, which sheers and 
sustains the brave and wise and good, the champions of 
truth and human kind, through all their labors — that life 
is his beyond all chance or change, growing, expansive, 
quenchless as time and human memory. He needs no 
statue — he desired none. It was the image of his soul he 
wished to perpetuate, and he has stamped it himself in lines 
of flame upon the souls of his countrymen. 

Not all the marbles of Carrara, fashioned by the sculp- 
tor's chisel into the mimicry of breathing life, could convey 
to the senses a likeness so perfect of himself as that which 
he has left upon the minds of men. He carved his own 
statue ; he built his own monument. In youth he laid the 
base broad as his whole country, that it might well sustain 
the mighty structure he had designed. Heroically through 
life he labored on the colossal shaft. 

In 1850, the last year of the first half of the nineteenth 
century, he prepared the healing measures which bear his 
name ; and as the capitol, well-proportioned and in perfect 
keeping with the now finished column, crowned his work, 
he saw that it was good and durable, sprang to its lofty 
and commanding summit, and, gazing from that lone height 
upon a horizon which embraced all coming time, with 
eternity for his background, and the eyes of the whole 
world riveted upon his solitary figure, consented there and 
thus to die. 



278 sterling's southern orator. 

COXIX. 

INTEMPERANCE OF PARTY.-— William GASTON 

Intemperance of party, wherever found, will never meet 
with an advocate in me. It is a most calamitous scourge 
to our country — the bane of social enjoyment, of individual 
justice, and of public virtue — unfriendly to the best pursuits 
of man, his interest, and his duty ; it renders useless or even 
pernicious the highest endowments of intellect, and the 
noblest disposition of the soul. But, sir, whatever may be 
the evil necessarily inherent in its nature, its ravages are 
the most enormous and desolating when it is seated on the 
throne of power, and vested with the attributes of rule. 

I mean not to follow the gentleman over the classic 
ground of Greece, Carthage, and Rome to refute his theory, 
and show that not to vehement opposition, but to the abuse 
of factions and intolerant power, their doom is to be attrib- 
uted. Nor will I examine some more modern instances of 
republics whose destruction has the same origin. The thing 
is no longer matter of discussion ; it has passed into a set- 
tled truth in the science of political philosophy. One who, 
on a question of historical deduction, of political theory, is 
entitled to high respect, has given us an admirable sum- 
mary of the experience of republics on this interesting 
inquiry. Mr. Madison says : " By faction, I understand a 
number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or 
minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some 
common impulse of passion or of interest, adverse to the 
rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate 
interests of the community. If a faction consists of less 
than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican prin- 
ciple, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views 
by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may 
convulse the society ; but it will be unable to execute and 
mask its violence under the forms of the constitution. When 
a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular gov- 
ernment, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its 
ruling passion or interest both the public good and the 
rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and 
private rights against the dangers of such a faction, and, at 
the same time, to preserve the spirit and form of popular 



sterling's southern orator. 279 

government, is, then, the great object to which our inquiries 
are directed." If this doctrine were, then, to be collected 
from the history of the world, can it be doubted, since the 
experience of the last twenty-five years ? Go to France, 
once revolutionary, now imperial France, and ask her whe- 
ther factious power or intemperate opposition be the more 
fatal to freedom and happiness ? Perhaps, at some moment 
when the eagle eye of her master is turned away, she may 
whisper to you to behold the demolition of Lyons or the 
devastation of La Vendee. Perhaps she will give you a 
written answer. Draw near to the once fatal lamp-post, 
and by its flickering light read it as traced in characters of 
blood that flowed from the guillotine : " Faction is a demon ! 
faction out of power is a demon enchained ! faction vested 
with the attributes of rule is a Moloch of destruction !" 



ccxx. 

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.— J. Story. 

Yes, Adams and Jefferson are gone from us forever — 
gone, as a sunbeam to revisit its native skies — gone, as this 
mortal to put on immortality. Of them, of each of them, 
every American may exclaim : 

" Ne'er to the chambers where the mighty rest, 
Since their foundation came a nobler guest, 
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed 
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade." 

We may not mourn over the departure of such men. We 
should rather hail it as a kind dispensation of Providence, to 
affect our hearts with new and livelier gratitude. They 
were not cut off in the blossom of their days, while yet the 
vigor of manhood flushed their cheeks, and the harvest of 
glory was ungathered. They fell not as martyrs fall, seeing 
only in dim perspective the salvation of their country. 
They lived to enjoy the blessings earned by their labors, 
and to realize all their fondest hopes had desired. The in- 
firmities of life stole slowly and silently upon them, leaving 
still behind a cheerful serenity of mind. In peace, in the 
bosom of alfection, in the hallowed reverence of their coun- 



280 sterling's southern orator. 

trymen, in the full possession of their faculties, they wore 
out the last remains of life, without a fear to cloud, with 
scarcely a sorrow to disturb its close. The joyful day of 
our jubilee came over them with its refreshing influence. 
To them, indeed, it was u a great and good day." The 
morning sun shone with softened lustre on their closing 
eyes. Its evening beams played lightly on their brows, 
calm in the dignity of death. Their spirits escaped from 
these frail tenements without a struggle or a groan. Their 
death was gentle as an infant's sleep. It was a long, linger- 
ing twilight, melting into the softest shade. 

Fortunate men, so to have lived, and so to have died. 
Fortunate, to have gone hand in hand in the deeds of the 
revolution. Fortunate, in the generous rivalry of middle 
life. Fortunate, in deserving and receiving the highest 
honors of their country. Fortunate, in old age to have 
rekindled their ancient friendship with a holier flame. 
Fortunate, to have passed through the dark valley of the 
shadow of death together. Fortunate, to be indissolubly 
united in the memory and affections of their countrymen. 
Fortunate, above all, in an immortality of virtuous fame, 
on which history may with severe simplicity write the 
dying encomium of Pericles, " No citizen, through their 
means, ever put on mourning." 



CCXXI. 

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.— T. Corwin. 

I have read much and read somewhat of this gentleman 
Terminus. Alexander was a devotee of this divinity. We 
have seen the end of him and his empire. It was said to be 
an attribute of this god that he must always advance and 
never recede. So both republican and imperial Rome be- 
lieved. It was, as they said, " their destiny." And indeed 
for a while it seemed even so. Roman Terminus did ad- 
vance. Under the eagles of Rome he was carried from his 
home on the Tiber to the furthest east, on the one hand, and 
to the far west, among the then barbarous tribes of western 
Europe, on the other. But at length the time came when 



sterling's southern orator. 281 

retributive justice had become a " destiny. 5 ' The despised 
Gaul calls out to the contemned Goth, and Attila, with his 
Huns, answers back the battle-shout to both. The a blue- 
eyed nations of the North," in succession or united, pour 
forth their countless hosts of warriors upon Rome and 
Rome's advancing god, Terminus. And where now is she, 
the " Mistress of the world" ? The spider weaves his web 
in her palaces, the owl sings his watch-song in her towers ! 
Teutonic power now lords it over the servile remnant, the 
miserable memento of old and once omnipotent Rome ! 
Sad, very sad, are the lessons which Time has written for 
us. Through and in them all I see nothing but the inflexible 
execution of that old law which ordains as eternal that 
cardinal rule, " Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's goods, 
nor any thing which is his f Since I have lately heard so 
much about the dismemberment of Mexico, I have looked 
back to see how, in the course of events, which we call 
" Providence," it has fared with other nations who engaged 
in this work of dismemberment. I see that, in the latter half 
of the eighteenth century, three powerful nations, Russia, 
Austria, and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Po- 
land. They said, too, as you say, " It is our destiny." They 
wanted " room." Doubtless each of these thought, with his 
share of Poland, his power was too strong ever to fear in- 
vasion or even insult. Did they remain untouched and in- 
capable of harm ? Alas, no ! Far, very far from it. Re- 
tributive justice must fulfil its destiny too. A very few 
years pass off, and we hear of a new man, a Corsican lieu- 
tenant, the self-named " armed soldier of democracy" — Napo- 
leon. He ravages Austria, covers her land with blood, 
drives the northern Caesar from his capital, and sleeps in 
his palace. Austria may now remember how her power 
trampled upon Poland. But has Prussia no atonement to 
make ? You see this same Napoleon, the blind instrument 
of Providence, at work there. The thunders of his can- 
non at Jena proclaim the work of retribution for Poland's 
wrongs ; and the successors of the Great Frederick, the 
drill-sergeant of Europe, are seen flying across the sandy 
plain that surrounds their capital, right glad if they may 
escape captivity or death. But how fires it with the Auto- 
crat of Russia? Is he secure in his share of the spoils ot 
Poland? No. Suddenly we«see six hundred thousand 
armed men inarching to Moscow. Blood, slaughter, and 



282 sterling's southern orator. 

desolation spread abroad over the land, and finally the con- 
flagration of the old commercial metropolis of Russia closes 
the retribution she must pay for her share in the dismember- 
ment of her weak and impotent neighbor. 

A mind prone to look for the judgment of Heaven in the 
doings of men cannot fail to see in Napoleon's march to 
Moscow the providence of God. When Moscow burned, it 
seemed as if the earth was lighted up, that the nations might 
behold the scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered, and 
heaved and rolled upward, higher and yet higher, till its 
flames licked the stars, and fired the whole heavens, it did 
seem as though the God of the nations was writing, in 
characters of flame, on the front of His throne, that doom 
which shall fall upon the strong nation who tramples in 
scorn upon the weak. And what fortune awaits him, the 
appointed executor of this work, when it was all done ? He 
too conceived the notion that " his destiny" pointed onward 
to universal dominion. France was too small. Europe, he 
thought, should bow down before him. But as soon as this 
idea took possession of his soul, he too become powerless. 
His Terminus must recede too. Right there, while he wit- 
nessed the humiliation, and doubtless meditated the subjuga- 
tion of Russia, He who holds the winds in His fist gathered 
the snows of the North and blew them upon his six hundred 
thousand men. They fled — they froze — they perished ! And 
now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved on universal 
dominion, he too is summoned to answer for the violation 
of that ancient law, " Thou shalt not covet any thing which 
is thy neighbor's." How is the mighty fallen ! He, beneath 
whose proud footstep Europe trembled, is now an exile at 
Elba, and finally a prisoner on the rock of Saint Helena ; 
and there, on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the 
crater of an extinguished volcano, there is the death-bed 
of the mighty conqueror ! All his " annexations" have come 
to this. His last hour is now come ; and he, the " man of 
destiny," he who had rocked the world as with the throes 
of an earthquake, is now powerless — still. Even as the 
beggar, so he died. On the wings of a tempest that raged 
with unwonted fury, up to the throne of the only Power 
that controlled him while he lived, went the fiery soul of 
that wonderful warrior, another witness to the existence of 
that eternal decree, that they who do not rule in righteous- 
ness shall perish from the earth. He has found "rooin" 



sterling's southern orator. 283 

at last. And France, too, she has found " room." Her 
ct eagles" now no longer scream along the banks of the Dan- 
ube, the Po, and flhe Boristhenes. They have returned home, 
to their old eyrie, between the Alps, the Rhine, and the 
Pyrenees. 



CCXXII. 
THE SOUTH— 1850.— Jefferson Davis. 

The son of a revolutionary soldier, attachment to this 
Union was among the first lessons of my childhood. Bred 
to the service of my country, from boyhood to mature age 
I wore its uniform. Through the brightest portion of my 
life I was accustomed to see our flag, historic emblem of 
the Union, rise with the rising and fall with the setting sun. 
I look upon it now with the affection of early love, and 
seek to maintain and preserve it by a strict adherence to the 
Constitution from which it had its birth, and by the nurture 
of which its stars have come so much to outnumber its orig- 
inal stripes. Shall that flag, which has gathered fresh glory 
in every war, and become more radiant still by the con- 
quest of peace — shall that flag now be torn by domestic fac- 
tion, and trodden in the dust by petty sectional rivalry ? 
Shall we of the South who have shared equally with you 
all your toils, all your dangers, all your adversities, and 
who equally rejoice in your prosperity and your fame, shall 
we be denied those benefits guaranteed by our compact, or 
gathered as the common fruits of a common country ? If 
so, self-respect requires that we should assert them, and, as 
best we may, maintain that which we could not surrender 
without losing your respect as well as our own. 

If, sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement shall cause 
the disunion of these States, the last chapter of our history 
will be a sad commentary upon the justice and the wisdom of 
our people. That this Union, replete with blessings to its 
own citizens, and diffusive of hope to the rest of mankind, 
should fall a victim to a selfish aggrandizement and a pseudo- 
philanthropy, prompting one portion of the Union to war 
upon the domestic rights and peace of another, would be a 
deep reflection on the good sense and patriotism of our day 
and generation. 



284 sterling's southern orator. 

Sir, I ask Northern senators to make the case their own ; 
to carry to their own fireside the idea of such intrusion 
and offensive discrimination as is offered t<? us ; realize these 
irritations, so galling to the humble, so intolerable to the 
haughty ; and wake, before it is too late, from the dream 
that the South will tamely submit. Measure the conse- 
quences to us of your assumption, and ask yourselves whether, 
as a free, honorable, and brave people, you would submit 
to it. 

It is essentially the characteristic of the chivalrous that 
they never speculate upon the fears of any man ; and I trust 
that no such speculations will be made upon either the con- 
dition or the supposed weakness of the South. ' They will 
bring sad disappointments to those who indulge them. 
Rely upon her devotion to the Union : rely upon the feeling 
of fraternity she inherited and has never failed to manifest ; 
rely upon the nationality and freedom from sedition which 
has in all ages characterized an agricultural people ; give 
her justice, sheer justice, and the reliance will never fail 
you. 



CCXXIII. 

THE MASSACRES OF ALAMO AND GOLIAD. 

Thomas H. Benton. 

Unhappy day, forever to be deplored, that Sunday morn- 
ing, March 6th, 1834, when the undaunted garrison of the 
Alamo, victorious in so many assaults over twenty times their 
number, perished to the last man by the hands of those, 
part of whom they had released on parole two months be- 
fore, leaving not one to tell how the first dealt out to multi- 
tudes that death which they themselves finally received. 
Unhappy day, that Palm Sunday, March 27th, when the 
five hundred and twelve prisoners at Goliad, issuing from 
the sally-post at dawn of day, one by one, under the cruel 
delusion of a return to their families, found themselves 
enveloped in double files of cavalry and infantry, marched 
to a spot fit for ihe perpetration of the horrid deed — and 
there, without an instant to think of parents, country, friends, 



sterling's southern orator. 285 

and God — in the midst of the consternation of terror and 
surprise, were inhumanly set upon, and pitilessly put to 
death, in spite jof those moving cries which reached to 
heaven, and regardless of those supplicating hands stretched 
forth for mercy, from which arms had been taken under the 
perfidious forms of a capitulation, Five hundred and six 
perished that morning — young, vigorous, brave sons of re- 
spectable families, and the pride of many a parent's heart — 
and their bleeding bodies, torn with wounds, and many yet 
alive, were thrown in heaps on vast fires, for the flames to 
consume what the steel had mangled. Six only escaped, 
and not by mercy, but by miracle. And this was the work 
of man upon his brother ; of Christian upon Christian ; of 
those upon those who adore the same God, invoke the same 
heavenly benediction, and draw precepts of charity and 
mercy from the same divine fountain. Accursed be the 
ground on which the dreadful deed was done ! Sterile, 
and set apart let it forever be ! No fruitful cultivation 
should ever enrich it; no joyful edifice should ever adorn 
it; but shut i*p, and closed by gloomy walls, the mournful 
cypress, the weeping willow, and the inscriptive monument 
should forever attest the foul deed of which it was the 
scene, and invoke from every passenger the throb of pity 
for the slain and the start of horror for the slayer. And you, 
neglected victims of the Old Mission and San Patricio, shall 
you be forgotten because your numbers were fewer, and 
your hapless fate more concealed ? No ! but to you justice 
shall be done. One common fate befell you all ; one com- 
mon memorial shall perpetuate your names and embalm 
your memories. 



ccxxiv. 

FAMINE IN IRELAND.— Henky Clay. 

The imploring appeal comes to us from the Irish nation, 
which is so identified with our own as to be almost part and 
parcel of ours, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Nor 
is it an ordinary case of human misery, nor a few isolated 
cases of death by starvation, that we are called upon to con- 
sider. Famine is stalking abroad throughout Ireland — whole 



286 sterling's southern orator. 

towns, counties — countless human beings, of every age and 
of both sexes, at this very moment, are starving, or in dan- 
ger of starving to death for bread. Of all the forms of dis- 
solution of human life, the pangs and agony of that which 
proceeds from famine are the most dreadful. If one dies 
fighting gloriously for his country, he is cheered in his ex- 
piring moments by the patriotic nature of his sacrifice. He 
knows that his surviving relatives and friends, while lament- 
ing his loss, will be gratified and honored by his devotion 
to his country. Poets, painters, sculptors, historians will 
record his deeds of valor, and perpetuate his renown. If 
he dies by the sudden explosion of the boilers of a steam- 
boat, or by a storm at sea, death is quiet and easy, and soon 
performs its mission. A few piercing shrieks are uttered, 
he sinks beneath the surface, and all is still and silent. But 
a death by starvation comes slow, lingering, and excruciat- 
ing. From day to day, the wretched victim feels his flesh 
dwindling, his speech sinking, his friends falling around him, 
and he finally expires in horrible agony. 

Behold the wretched Irish mother — with laggard looks 
and streaming eyes — her famished children clinging to her 
tattered garments, and gazing piteously in her face, begging 
for food ! and see the distracted husband-father, with pallid 
cheeks, standing by, horror and despair depicted in his coun- 
tenance — tortured with the reflection that he can afford no 
succor or relief to the dearest objects of his heart, about to 
be snatched forever from him by the most cruel of all deaths. 

This is no fancy picture ; but, if we are to credit the terri- 
ble accounts which reach us from that theatre of misery 
and wretchedness, these things are of daily occurrence. In- 
deed, no imagination can conceive— no tongue express — no 
pencil paint — the horrors of these scenes which are there 
daily exhibited. 

Shall the appeal be in vain ? Shall starving Ireland — the 
young and the old — dying women and children — stretch out 
their hands to us for bread, and find no relief? 

Let us rise to the magnitude of the duty whicn is before 
us, and by a generous supply from the magnitude of our 
means evince the genuineness and cordiality of our sym- 
pathy and commiseration. 



sterling's southern orator. 287 

ccxxv. 

THE CURRENCY.— J. C. Calhoun. 

For this diseased state of your currency, there is but one 
certain remedy — to return to the currency of the Constitu- 
tion. Read that instrument, and hear what it says: " Con- 
gress shall coin money and regulate the value thereof; no 
State shall emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold 
and silver a legal tender." Here are positive and negative 
provisions ; a grant of power to Congress, and a limitation 
on the power of the States, in reference to the currency. 
Can you doubt that the object was to give to Congress the 
control of the currency ? What else is the meaning " to 
regulate the value thereof" ? Can you doubt that the cur- 
rency was intended to be specie ? What else is the mean- 
ing " to coin money " ? Can you doubt, on the other hand, 
that it was the intention that the States should not super- 
sede the currency which Congress was authorized to estab- 
lish ? What else is the meaning of the provision that the~ 
shall not issue bills of credit, or make any thing but go] 
and silver a legal tender ? Can we doubt, finally, that tl 
country is not in the condition that the Constitution intenr 
ed, as far as the currency is concerned ? Does Congres 
in point of fact, regulate the currency ? No. Does it su] 
ply a coin circulation ? No. Do the States, in fact, regi 
late it ? Yes. Does it consist of paper, issued by the ai 
thority of the States ? Yes. Is this paper, in effect, a leg; 
tender ? Yes, it has expelled the currency of the Constiti 
tion, and we are compelled to take it or nothing. Well, thei 
as the currency is in an unconstitutional condition, thfe 
conclusion is irresistible that the Constitution has failed to 
effect what it intended, as far as the currency is concerned ; 
but whether it has failed by misconstruction, or the want 
of adequate provisions, is not yet decided. Thus much, 
however, is clear ; that it is through the agency of bank 
paper that it has failed, and the power intended to be con- 
ferred on Congress over the currency has been superseded. 
But for that, the power of Congress over the currency 
would have been this day in full force, and the currency 
itself in a constitutional condition. Nor is it less clear that 
the Constitution cannot be restored while the cause that 



288 sterling's southern" orator. 

superseded it remains ; and this presents the great question, 
How can it be removed ? I do not intend to discuss it on 
this occasion. I shall only say that the task is one of great 
delicacy and difficulty, requiring much wisdom and caution, 
and in the execution of which precipitation ought to be 
carefully avoided ; but when executed, then, and not till 
then, shall we have the solid, stable, and uniform currency 
intended by the Constitution, and which is indispensable, 
not only to the full success of our manufactures, and all 
other branches of productive industry, but also to the 
safety of our free institutions. 



ccxxvi. 
THE INDIANS.— S. Wright. 



What has produced this startling change in these hardy 
children of nature, within the short space allotted to the 
life of a single man ? The answer stares us in the face. 
Not war, nor pestilence, nor famine, but the friendly touch 
of the white man ! The progress not of arms against them, 
but of settlement and civilization around them. Look at 
the Senecas. They constitute now a moiety of all the Indi- 
ans in New- York. In the war of 1812, they numbered their 
thousand warriors, and sent them to the field, led by the 
gallant Frazier, to strengthen our army on the frontiers, and 
within the territory of the enemy. Where now are those 
thousand warriors of the Senecas ? Did the war reduce 
their number ? No, sir ; peace and friendly intercourse with 
us has done it, and already that thousand has become re- 
duced to four hundred, if not within that number. I speak 
from a statement made by two intelligent chiefs of the na- 
tion. They are perishing from their contact with the 
whites ; while, so far from improving from the civilization 
around and among them, they are, as a people, worse fed, 
worse clad, and worse provided than they were when they 
had never seen a white man. The labors of philanthropists 
have been sedulously performed among portions of this tribe 
for a series of years, without being able to arrest their 
downward and rapid march toward complete extinction. 



sterling's southern orator. 289 

While some are made wiser and better by their white asso- 
ciates, a vastly larger number are made more idle and more 
vicious. . . . 

I will not, I cannot dwell upon this picture ; and yet 
there are those whose mistaken sympathy would hold these 
people where they are, to perish under the load of vice 
which surrounds them, pervades their society in every form, 
and is sweeping them into the grave with unexampled 
rapidity. Not so with me. I would change their con- 
dition. I would remove them from the contamination 
which surrounds and is overwhelming them. I would place 
them where they may again be Indians ; where they may 
again have the motives before them of ambition, of enter- 
prise, of pleasure, or profit, which stimulate the Indian ; 
and where, secure from the encroachments of the whites, 
they may again become independent and free and virtuous. 

But, Mr. President, reject this treaty ; combine, as you 
will then combine, the cupidity of the preemption company 
with that of the white settlers who now surround them, 
and, from interest, resist the company, and the execution 
of this treaty ; for the common end of both is gain, from the 
Indians, and from their lands ; and when they find that a 
division of interest defeats either, a combination may be 
easily formed which will favor both. I say accomplish 
this, and what then will be the condition of the New-York 
Indians ? How long will they be able to withstand a com- 
bination of interest so strong and so strongly wielded ? 
They cannot withstand it, sir ; and a few years will show 
you their history in that of Stockbridge, the Brother towns, 
and Munsees. They will be found miserable wanderers 
among their red brethren in some remote part of the 
country, without a home or the means to procure one ; 
without the comforts of life or provision for their future 
support ; their members but a fraction of the present popula- 
tion, and their last hope buried with the last council fire 
which burned upon those reservations they have been com- 
pelled to abandon to their white neighbors to avoid ex- 
tinction. 



13 



290 sterling's southern orator, 

CCXXVII. 

FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES— 1796. 
General* Washington. 

Born, sir, in a land of liberty — having early learned its 
value — having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it — 
having, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure 
its permanent establishment in my own country — my anx- 
ious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best 
wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever, in any country, 
I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom. 
But, above all, the events of the French revolution have 
produced the deepest solicitude, as well as the highest admi- 
ration. To call your nation brave were to pronounce but 
common praise. Wonderful people ! Ages to come will 
read with astonishment the history of your brilliant ex- 
ploits. I rejoice that the period of your toils and of your 
immense sacrifices is approaching. I rejoice that the inter- 
esting revolutionary movements of so many years have- 
issued in the formation of a constitution designed to give 
permanency to the great object for which you have con- 
tended. I rejoice that liberty, which you have so long 
embraced with enthusiasm — liberty, of which you have 
been the invincible defenders — now finds an asylum in 
the bosom of a regularly organized government ; a govern- 
ment which, being formed to secure the happiness of the 
French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my 
heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the 
United States by its resemblance to his own. On these 
glorious events, accept, sir, my sincere congratulations. 

In delivering to you these sentiments, I express not my 
own feelings only, but those of my fellow-citizens, in relation 
to the commencement, the progress, and the issue of the 
French revolution ; and they will cordially join with me in 
purest wishes to the Supreme Being that the citizens of our 
sister republic, our magnanimous allies, may soon enjoy in 
peace that liberty which they have purchased at so great a 
price, and all the happiness which liberty can bestow. 

I receive, sir, with lively sensibility, the symbol of the 
triumphs and of the enfranchisement of your nation, the 



sterling's southern orator. 291 

colors of France, which you have now presented to the 
United States. The transaction will be announced to Con- 
gress, and the colors will be deposited with those archives 
of the United States which are at once the evidences and 
the memorials of their freedom and independence. May 
these be perpetual ! And may the friendship of the two 
republics be commensurate with their existence ! 



CCXXVIII. 
THE SOUTH DURING- THE WAR OF 1812.— R. Y. Hayxe. 

I come now to the war of 1812; a war which, I well 
remember, was called, in derision, (while its event was 
doubtful,) the Southern war, and sometimes the Carolina 
war, but which is now universally acknowledged to have 
done more for the honor and prosperity of the country than 
all other events in our history put together. What, sir, 
were the objects of that war ? a Free trade and sailors' 
rights." It was for the protection of Northern shipping 
and New-England seamen that the country flew to arms. 
What interest had the South in that contest ? If they had 
sat down coldly to calculate the value of their interests in- 
volved in it, they would have found that they had every 
thing to lose and nothing to gain. But, sir, with that 
generous dovotion to country so characteristic of the South, 
they only asked if the rights of any portion of their fellow- 
citizens had been invaded ; and when told that Northern 
ships and. New-England seamen had been arrested on the 
common highway of nations, they felt that the honor of 
their country was assailed ; and, acting on that exalted 
sentiment " which feels a stain like a wound," they resolved 
to seek, in open war, for a redress of those injuries which it 
did not become freemen to endure. 

Sir, the whole South, animated as by a common impulse, 
cordially united in declaring and promoting that war. 
South-Carolina sent to your councils, as the advocates 
and supporters of that war, the noblest of her sons. How 
they fulfilled that trust let a grateful country tell. Not a 
measure was adopted, not a battle fought, not a victory won, 



292 sterling's southern orator. 

which contributed, in any degree, to the success of that 
war, to which Southern councils and Southern valor did not 
largely contribute. Sir, since South-Carolina is assailed, I 
must be suffered to speak it to her praise, that at the very 
moment when, in one quarter, we heard it solemnly pro- 
claimed " that it did not become a religious and moral peo- 
ple to rejoice at the victories of our army or our navy," 
her legislature unanimously 

" Hesolved^ That we will cordially support the govern- 
ment in the vigorous prosecution of the war, until a peace 
can be obtained on honorable terms ; and we will cheerfully 
submit to every privation that may be required of us, by our 
government, for the accomplishment of this object." 

South-Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw open 
her treasury to the government. She put at the absolute 
disposal of the officers of the United States all that she 
possessed— her men, her money, and her arms. She appro- 
priated half a million of dollars, on her own account, in de- 
fence of her maritime frontier ; ordered a brigade of State 
troops to be raised ; and, when left to protect herself by 
her own means, never suffered the enemy to touch her soil 
without being instantly driven off or captured. Such, sir, 
was the conduct of the South — such the conduct of my own 
State— in that dark hour " which tried men's souls !" 



CCXXIX. 

DEFENCE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED 
STATES.— J. S. Black. 

Mr. Chairman : In the history of this country it has never 
before been thought necessary either to toast the Supreme 
Court or defend it. But times have changed. Very re- 
cently attacks full of bitter malignity have been made on 
that tribunal, and measures are deliberately taken to break 
down its just authority. Considering by whom these as- 
saults are made, and what the object of them is, it would, 
perhaps, be better to encourage them, since it is certain that 
in the long run they can do no harm to any body but 
their authors. If you have a viper to deal with, or a nest 



sterling's southern orator. 293 

of vipers, it is better to keep them biting at a file than any 
thing else they can lay their teeth to. Still it may not be 
inappropriate to look for a moment at the occasion of the 
23i*esent persecution. 

Three private citizens of Indiana, perfectly innocent of 
any offence — I say perfectly innocent, because, up to this 
time, no human being has ever legally sworn even to a belief 
of their guilt — these citizens were arrested, kidnapped, and 
carried before a body of men wholly without power to med- 
dle with them — not authorized even to swear a witness for 
them or against them — and there, after a proceeding which 
it would be mockery to call a trial, they were ordered to be 
killed on a certain fixed day. In this condition of things 
the judicial authorities intervened, and with the aid of Pre- 
sident Johnson the victims were rescued. 

When the cause came into the Supreme Court, the simple 
question was, Whether a citizen could be lawfully deprived 
of his life without a fair, honest trial, before an impartial 
jury and a regular court? To this there could be but one 
answer, and that answer was given unanimously, all the 
judges yielding their full and unreserved assent to it. They 
held, in effect, that the pretended trial was a conspiracy, 
and that the execution, if it had taken place, would have 
been a mere lawless murder. What else could they do ? 
To hang meu without judge or jury is an act so clearly for- 
bidden by the fundamental law that no one can make any 
mistake about it, if he has sense enough to know his right 
hand from his left. The prohibition is written down as 
plain as any one of the ten commandments ;' there is not a 
sentence in the Lorcl's Prayer more simple; not a moral 
precept can be found in the child's primer that is more 
easily understood. Yet the court is vilipended, and abused, 
and slandered for saying it. The organs of disunion and 
anarchy publicly proclaim their determination to disregard 
the decision, not because it is erroneous, but because it con- 
fines their power by limits inconveniently narrow. They 
declare that they will do, in defiance of it, whatever grati- 
fies their own purposes or promotes their own interests; 
and they impudently use this very expression: "If the law 
stands in our toay, so much the worse for the law" 

Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, the leader and driver of the pre- 
sent Congress, denounces this decision on the floor of the 
House. To my certain knowledge he knows it to be per- 



294 sterling's southern orator. 



fectly righto The senseless twaddle about hanging Ameri- 
can citizens by the law of nations, on criminal accusations 
of their own government, could not for a single instant im- 
pose on an understanding like his. But he denounces the 
judges for deciding what he knows and what they know to 
be true, for no conceivable reason except his desire that his 
particular friends may continue to enjoy the delightful lux- 
ury of shedding innocent blood. 

The judges, and all who think with them, are called trai- 
tors because they declare the Constitution to mean what it 
says, and because they will not violate it themselves or per- 
mit its violation by others when they can prevent it. If 
this conflict for and against the Constitution implies treason 
on either side, the guilt does not lie at our door. It is not 
the man who sustains and loves and believes in the laws of 
his country ; it is not such a man that can be justly called a 
traitor. But if there be an American citizen anywhere who, 
with an oath upon his conscience to support the Constitu- 
tion, would make war upon it, subvert it by brute force, and 
take away the defences it affords to life, liberty, and pros- 
perity, leaving them to the mercy of mobs, murderers, kid- 
nappers, military commissions, and bureaus of military jus- 
tice, such a man is thoroughly a traitor. 

" Ay, from the extremest upward of his head 
To the descent and dust beneath his feet, 
A most toad-spotted traitor." 

These arrows which they cast against us, barbed and poi- 
soned with the accusation of treason, rebound from our im- 
penetrable armor, and fall harmless at our feet ; for we are 
shielded, and helmed, and weaponed with the truth; but if 
we chose to take them up and send them back at our adver- 
saries, we would leave them quivering in their very hearts. 

A great truth, on which the safety of society and the se- 
curity of individual rights must depend, is in its nature in- 
destructible. You may crush it to-day, but it will reappear 
and vindicate itself to-morrow. On the other hand, nothing 
is so evanescent or so fickle as the passions that spring from 
the interests and the prejudices of the hour. Let the les- 
sons of history be heeded. Titus Oates, Bedloe, and Dan- 
gerfield enjoyed a far greater measure of popular confidence 
than ever was bestowed on Mr. Holt, Mr. Conover, Mr. 






sterling's southern orator. 295 

Campbell, alias Hoare, or by all the officers, agents, spies, 
delators, and witnesses of the military bureau put together. 
They — I mean Oates and company — were loudly applauded 
in parliament ; they were the former favorites of the British 
people, and they were the very darlings of all the political 
preachers. They held the life and honor of the nation in 
their hands. If they but pointed a finger at an individual, 
he was doomed, and no purity of previous character, no 
proof of innocence, however clear, could save him from de- 
struction. Such was their overflowing prosperity one year ; 
but before the next came round, those wretched miscreants 
were howling at the cart's tail, under the lash of the public 
executioner, and the whole population of London was clap- 
ping its hands with joy. Let the man who puts his trust in 
a false popularity beware of the rebound which is sure to 
come sooner or later. It is written clown among the un- 
changeable decrees of Almighty God that no he shall live 
forever; and especially is this true of a great, monstrous, 
bloody lie like this which the Supreme Court has put its 
broad foot upon. 

I have spoken of the court as a collective body. All 
the judges concurred in the decision of the question before 
them. On a merely speculative point, which lay outside of 
the record there was a dissent. The minority was wrong, 
of course, as all minorities are. Each judge, however, met 
his duty to the case itself, and ail are therefore entitled to 
the reverence and respect which is justly shown to the high- 
est talent, coupled with the purest integrity. But one among 
them is primus inter pares, not because he is better or greater 
than the others, but because he is more fortunate. He was 
selected as the organ of the majority, and gave expression 
to their judgment. The thoughts that breathe and the 
words that burn all over that opinion are his thoughts and 
his words. The irresistible logic which goes through and 
through all adverse argument, and the felicity of illustration 
which makes the whole subject blaze with light, are all his 
own. That great production will be a guide and a land- 
mark for all future time ; it identifies its author forever with 
the sacred cause of constitutional liberty, and makes his 

" One of the few, the immortal names, 
That were not born to die." 

It gives him a position to which no earthly station can 



296 steeling's southern" orator, 

add any dignity; for a man of just ambition would always 
rather be a public benefactor than to hold high office. 

Mr. Chairman, when you recollect that the court has 
saved us from nothing less than the total overthrow of our 
free government, and when you observe the roaring and 
foaming of the calumny which assails it, I think you will 
agree with me, that it is the duty of every Christian man in 
America to put up a morning and evening prayer for the 
long life of all the judges, and the perpetual preservation of 
their just authority. 



ccxxx. 

NECESSITY OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 

O. N. OGDE2T. 

Resting directly, as our government does, on the people, 
belonging to them, and administered by themselves and for 
themselves, tbe enlightenment of the masses is no longer a 
matter of mere private concernment, but of general interest. 
The son of my neighbor may be called to-morrow, by the 
popular voice, to assist in framing and enacting those laws 
by which, in their equal and uniform operation, my rights of 
person and property, and yours, and those of ail of us, are to 
be determined. It is then manifestly and directly to my in- 
terest that he should be well qualified to perform intelli- 
gently the high duties and important functions which may 
thus devolve upon him. 

It is certainly a noble, just, and true conception — that 
of the duty of the government to instruct the children of 
the people. We have military and naval schools supported 
by government expenditure. Is it of more moment that 
the government should have an army and a navy for its pro- 
tection, and should maintain them in efficient skill and dis- 
cipline, than that the people by whom that government is 
administered, which the army and navy are designed to up- 
hold, should be properly fitted for the important duties as- 
signed them by the constitution and the laws? 

The several professions are open only to those who are 



sterling's southern orator. 297 

duly qualified for their exercise. Are statesmen and law- 
makers born, as is said of poets ? The pilots and engineers 
who officiate on the high seas, and upon the thousand arte- 
ries of internal commerce which course through our valleys, 
are required to be proficient in their respective arts. While 
thus particular and exacting as to these, are we to be care- 
less as to the officers and crew of our goodly ship of state, 
in which the fortunes and the hopes of ail of us are em- 
barked ? and not our hopes only, but those of the votaries 
of freedom throughout the world, who are straining their 
eager eyes to see how she heads and how she rides the 
waves, fondly hoping that she will be the ark of their safety 
too. 

The corner-stone of the great fabric of American free gov- 
ernment is equality. We promulgated, in 1776, the dogma, 
that all men are created free and equal. We cannot limit, 
and would not if we could, the exercise and enjoyment of 
political franchises and privileges to the educated classes ; 
but we can, and we ought to, diffuse throughout the whole 
social circle the light of education, so that there shall be no 
chamber or gallery, no nook or corner of our great common 
dwelling — our country — where Wisdom shall not hang her 
lamp to guide the feet of our children. 

" Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from error 
There were no need of arsenals and forts/ 



CCXXXI. 

THE PITIABLE CONDITION OF IGNORANCE. 

W. W. Hageman. 

I caist conceive of no object more pitiable than an old 
man who, tottering with the weight of years, with a head 
whitened by the frosts of many winters, has not advanced a 
single step toward the perfection of that cultivation which 
his higher nature demanded in thunder-tones all along the 
broad highway of life, and whose feeble limbs have now 



298 sterling's southern orator. 

• 

brought him to the verge of the grave, a beggar in gener- 
ous sentiment and kind feelings ; passing from earth into 
the wide ocean of eternity, with a heart unwarmed by love 
or sympathy for his fellow-man — every noble feeling crush- 
ed and withered by a morbid passion for wealth. A human 
heart, eighty years old, dead to every human interest. 
Life to him has indeed been a struggle, in which avarice 
has been the victor. We march through life, not to the 
deep, soul-stirring anthem which bursts upon the spiritual 
ear, as it comes gushing up from the mysterious depths of 
nature, mingling its sublime harmony with the melody of 
the immortal soul, struggling to w T ing its way to the home 
of the Eternal ; but every ear is attuned to the clinking 
of coin, and all move in solid phalanx to the low murmur 
of selfishness and ambition. 

Why should we stifle the infinite sources of purest pleas- 
ure that lie deep seated in the soul, and content ourselves 
with the thorns and thistles gathered from the wayside in 
life's journey, when by wandering occasionally from the 
beaten track, a new world of richness and of beauty opens to 
our view, from which we can gather flowers, inhale their 
fragrance, and feel the warm sunshine — gathering sweets 
which seldom linger among the abodes of covetousness and 
luxury ? Why linger in the desert amid tempests and barren- 
ness, when the oasis lies just beyond, with its bowers 
thrown open by the hand of God Himself; where the weary 
pilgrim can repose, far from the world's ignoble strife, 
there gather strength to nerve him on the brink of the 
river that shall bear him to a fairer land ? Why steal 
away from the bright fireside, where all that is lovely and 
genial in the affections should cluster, to feed upon the 
husks that a sordid and selfish world offer to thy unsatisfied 
soul ? Why should these pleasures of the high and more 
ennobling class be confined to the few, when all who choose 
may taste them ? With most of us in this money-making 
age, the inspirations of genius are dim vagaries, visionary 
nonsense. Young America wants something the eye can 
see and measure ; it must be as palpable as John or James, 
or else it is pronounced a nonentity. 






sterling's southern orator. 299 

CCXXXIX. 

BLIND DEVOTION TO PARTY.— F. W. Pickens. 

In presenting these views to the House, I have acted 
entirely on my own judgment, and I have introduced a 
resolution to meet the precise issue, according to my con- 
scientious convictions of the truth of the case. I believe 
that we are the judges — I believe, according to the develop- 
ments which have been made on this floor, the gentlemen 
who have the certificate of the governor are not entitled 
to the returns ; and so believing, I am prepared to meet 
the question. I was prepared to do so several days ago. 
I desire to decide it now, frankly, fairly, and boldly, before 
the world, without the trammels and the collateral issues 
that have been thrown around it by the technicalities of 
county court special pleading. I act here on my own re- 
sponsibility. 

I do not propose any thing which is the result of concert, 
of caucus, or of understanding entered into out of this 
House. I act alone upon my conviction of what I believe to 
be true, and right, and just. Sir, we have seen too much of 
party organization and party drill. If there is one evil of 
the present day greater than another, it is that miserable 
party spirit, on both sides, which seems disposed to draw 
every member into humble subserviency to the dictates of 
a few leaders. 

There is another sentiment which I entertain, and which 
I will here avow. It is this : that during the last adminis- 
tration there has been too strong executive action in this 
government ; and it is time that the representatives of 
the people should assert their independence, and trample 
on the ties of party — looking only to the good of the country, 
to the sanctity of the constitution, and to the preservation 
of their own honor and independence. If there be one 
object more dear to me than another, it is that I may see 
this House redeemed and regenerated — that I may see it 
break loose from its subserviency to that monster god of 
party which is reared up on every side, and which claims 
from its victims a base, devoted, and blind idolatry. 



300 sterling's southern orator. 

ccxxxiii. 

RELIEF FOR THE BANKRUPT.— N. P. Tallmadge. 

Sir, I am rejoiced to perceive that, during this discussion 
thus far, no party considerations have intruded themselves 
upon us. I trust we shall continue to be exempted from 
them. The subject is too sacred, the ground on which we 
stand is too holy, to be polluted by such unbidden footsteps. 
Let us, then, soar above the foul atmosphere of party, and 
breathe the pure air of justice and humanity. Thousands 
and thousands are now watching, with the most anxious 
solicitude, the result of your deliberations. Upon your 
action is suspended the fate of hundreds of thousands of 
your fellow-citizens, including every age, sex, and condition. 
It is not the business man alone that has felt the desolating 
fury of the storm which has swept like a tornado over our 
once happy land. The old and young have also shared its 
withering influence: and now, from lisping infancy to 
tottering age, an appeal is made to your humanity, enough 
to penetrate even hearts of stone. Shall it go unanswered ? 
Will you permit the unwelcome memory of the past, and 
the blighted hopes of the future, to hurry their victims to 
despair ? Many have already gone beyond your sympathy. 
Prostrated, ruined, broken-hearted, desperate from " hope 
deferred," they have reached 

" The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveller returns." 

But you have it in your power to minister consolation 
to those that still survive. Save, then, I beseech you — 
save the energetic, the enterprising man, on whose future 
exertions and acquisitions depends the support of aged 
parents and tender offspring. Let him not be compelled to 
flee from his country and his home, as JEneas fled from the 
flames of Troy, with old Anchises on his shoulders, and 
young lulus by his side. Place him once more in a con- 
dition to aid his country in its onward march to prosperity 
and greatness. This can be done by your favorable action 
oh the measure now before you. In it are involved the 
dearest domestic relations, as well as the most impor- 
tant public interests. In your hands is the issue of happi- 



STERLING'S southern orator. 301 

ness or of misery to thousands of your fellow-beings. I 
trust you will so dispose of it that the cause of humanity 
will be promoted by the discharge of a constitutional duty. 



ccxxxiv. 
EQUAL RIGHTS.— J. Letcher. 



The inquiry naturally forces itself upon us, What is the 
best means of protecting property against this danger ? 
Can you protect it by pursuing a course which must excite 
popular prejudice, and rouse up against it a portion of the 
people East and West who have no interest in its preserva- 
tion, and who feel that it is the cause of injustice and wrong 
to them? If we would protect this "peculiar property," 
we must not expose it to the influence of popular prejudice. 
If this mixed basis shall be adopted, will it not have the 
inevitable effect of inflaming the West, and uniting them 
as one man against the Constitution, and will they not have 
the cordial sympathy and united action of a large party in 
Eastern Virginia ? When such a state of things shall take 
place, Virginia, East and West, will have cause to dread the 
consequences that will follow. And where will rest the 
responsibility? This Eastern "governmental majority" 
have the power to avert this danger — to save the State from 
the violent agitation wilich now threatens her peace and her 
integrity. They can do it, if they will; and let me tell 
you, gentlemen, that if this evil hour shall come, the West 
will stand justified in the eyes of the world. 

And let me say further, that if the East would secure 
protection, not only for slave, but every other species of pro- 
perty, they must embody in the constitution none other than 
sound and well-recognized republican principles — principles 
which will command the public approbation, and secure for 
the government the popular affections. This will accomplish 
the object which the East have in view, and will at the 
same time destroy all sectional feeling, and unite Virginians, 
East and West, in one glorious brotherhood. 

I trust Eastern gentlemen will look at this question in 
the point of view in which I have imperfectly presented it 
to the consideration of the committee. Any constitution 



802 STERLING'S SOUTHERN ORATOR, 

which we may adopt, and which will protect property in 
the Valley or trans- Alleghany, will, of necessity, protect it 
in the Piedmont and Tidewater divisions of the State. Any 
constitution which will secure the interests and rights, and 
promote the prosperity and happiness of the people of the 
Valley or trans-Alleghany, will, of necessity, work the same 
results in the Piedmont and Tidewater divisions of the State. 

" Equal rights is all we ask — the same rights with your- 
selves. Equality — that equality which our fathers took up 
arms to acquire, and which their sons have a right to claim 
as their own." Can the East — will the East now withhold 
those equal rights and that equality from us? 

Let not Eastern gentlemen " lay the flattering unction to 
their souls," that, when the constitution, with the mixed 
basis recognized in it, is adopted here, the controversy and 
the struggle between the East and the West is at an end. 
The fight will then be resumed with more fierceness, and 
with more determination than ever. The controversy will 
be continued, in the language of the gentleman from Mason, 
and the appeal will be taken from this convention to the 
people of Eastern Virginia, at their court-houses. The ques- 
tion will be discussed fully — the people will have the facts 
before them — they will form a correct judgment — and w r ill 
render a verdict in favor of the right. The people of East- 
Virginia will never consent that an act of such gross in- 
equality and injustice shall be consummated at the expense 
of their brethren of the West. 



ccxxxv. 

A CULTIVATED MIND IN OLD AGE.— Rev. Thomas F. Davis. 

Another very lovely feature of the cultivated mind is its 
spirit of young life — its ceaseless rejuvenescence. It is 
never old — ever springing up into beauty, and freshness, and 
fertility. Like the celebrated Egyptian Queen, 

' Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale 
Its infinite variety." 



sterling's southern orator. 303 

It places upon the hoary head a crown of perennial verdure. 
Impressed with the frailty of life — burdened with its cares — ■ 
sinking under the weight of its labors — passing away with 
its advancing years, we naturally look around for some 
token of better things. With what joy, then, do we recog- 
nize the evidences of perpetual youth, and hail the pre- 
monitions of eternity ! Plow delightful it is to witness the 
exhibitions of the life of mind ! It is with the fondest emo- 
tion we listen to the tongue of age while it gives utter- 
ance to the spirit within. How we revel with that spirit 
as it disports itself with the pleasures of the imagination — 
returns to the gardens of youth, and gathers fragrance from 
the flowers of hope. After years of struggle, sorrow, and 
suffering, we find it baptized with the dews of the morning, 
and rejoicing, even as in the dawn of life. We listen, and 
seem to hear the murmur of streams and the song of birds. 
We stand still, and the breath of spring comes over us, 
redolent and balmy — the sweet South, from " a bed of vio- 
lets." The spirit of the mind, how quick and fresh it is ! 
How lovely and how pure — the blessings of the present, the 
promise of the future ! Among its finest illustrations, let 
me refer to one of whom we are justly proud, and whose 
memory is in all our hearts. Who is there that knew him, 
and knew him well, that has not often hung upon the lips of 
William Gaston ? I speak not now of that majestic elo- 
quence which commanded senates — of those wonderful pro- 
fessional abilities which directed and determined the issues 
of jurisprudence — nor of all those rich and varied attain- 
ments which ranked him among the very first men of his 
age. I allude to the ever-elastic play of his mind — to its 
wit, its vivacity, its buoyancy. I would call up again that 
youthful joy and ever-brightening life of the spirit which 
breathed, and moved, and quickened, imparting charm to his 
conversation, and giving delight to his hearers — which 
threw its halo around departing life, and would not be 
either removed or repressed by the elevated superiority 
of his understanding, nor the acknowledged dignity of his 
character. He has passed from among us, but has impressed 
on our thoughts the model of whatever is great in a man, 
united with all that is pleasing and honorable in a gentle- 
man. The line of light which he has left behind him is still 
bright — and let it be to the young men of North-Carolina 
the subject of frequent contemplation. 



304 sterling's southern orator. 

CCXXXVI. 

TERMS OF REUNION.— J. R. Doolittle. 

Fellow-citizens, I am afraid I am detaining you. There 
was but one more point that I wished to illustrate. It is 
this : You remember the terrible battle of Bull Run, July, 
1861. You remember when our forces went on in the morn- 
ing, flushed with victory, or the hope of victory, and came 
back in disaster ; and many members of Congress who went 
out to see the battle with the words " On to Richmond !" 
on their lips, came fleeing back themselves from the field 
of disaster, and one of them, even, was captured and taken 
prisoner himself. 

Now, fellow-citizens, in view of this terrible defeat, when 
we were all humbled and bowed down before Almighty God, 
what took place? Congress, by an almost entirely unani- 
mous voice, declared the purposes of the war, and the con- 
ditions upon which the war should cease. They declared it 
in these words : " That this war is not prosecuted upon our 
part in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of con- 
quest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or inter- 
fering with the rights or established institutions of those 
States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the 
Constitution, and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and 
to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and 
rights of the several States unimpaired ; that, as soon as these 
objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease." 

Where did Congress say, in that resolution, we will im- 
pose upon them negro suffrage before the war ceases? 
Where did Congress say, in that resolution, that they would 
impose upon them this, that, or the other condition ? But 
they declared in most positive terms, and appealed to the God 
of battles, and appealed to Him in the midst of disaster — 
at a time when from their humbled hearts they had a right 
to appeal — at the time, too, when their appeal should .have 
been made in all sincerity and honesty — and they declared 
that they prosecuted the war for the supremacy of the Union, 
for the salvation of the States; not to destroy them, but for 
their equal rights and dignity. And when that was accom- 
plished, the war should cease. 

And further, fellow-citizens, and this is a point which I 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 305 

shall make, and it is the last one to which I will call your 
attention, and, therefore, it is one which I hope you will not 
forget : In the convention of 1864, when, in the midst of the 
war, we placed Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson in nomination, 
the one for President and the other for Vice-President, we 
stated in our platform precisely the terms upon which Ave 
insisted for the settlement of the war so far as the Constitu- 
tion is concerned. We declared, in that, inasmuch as the 
emancipation proclamation had already been issued and 
the slaves were set free in many of the States, we declared 
that we were in favor of the constitutional amendment which 
would set free all the slaves in all the States. That we 
declared for 1864, and it was all that we declared in refer- 
ence to the Constitution of the United States; and we have 
no right to insist upon other terms against their consent. 
If they consent to other terms, they may. It is true, fellow- 
citizens, that if we choose, with the consent of all the 
States or of three fourths of all the States, to change the 
basis of representation from population to voters, it would 
be right. There is a principle in that which can be defend- 
ed. But when this Government of the United States says 
to the eleven States of the Union : If you don't adopt negro 
suffrage, if you don't vote for the constitutional amendment, 
you shall be punished for not doing it by losing half of your 
representation, I need not say that it is a cruelty, a degra- 
dation, that we have no right to impose upon States in this 
Union which are entitled to representation. 



ccxxxvu. 

ORIGIN OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.— John Randolph. 

Permit me now to recall the attention of the committee 
to the original design of this government. It grew out of 
the necessity, indispensable and unavoidable, in the circum- 
stances of the country, of some general power capable of 
regulating foreign commerce. Sir, I am old enough to 
remember the origin of this government; and though I was 
too young to participate in the transactions of the day, I 
have a perfect recollection of what was public sentiment on 



306 sterling's southern orator. 

the subject. And I repeat, without fear of contradiction, 
that the proximate as well as the remote cause of the ex- 
istence of the federal government was the regulation of for- 
eign commerce. If the old Congress had possessed the 
power of laying a duty of ten per cent ad valorem on im- 
ports, this Constitution would never have been called into 
existence. 

But we are told that, along with the regulation of for- 
eign commerce, the States have yielded fa the general gov- 
ernment, in as broad terms, the regulation of domestic com- 
merce — I mean the commerce among the several States — 
and that the same power is possessed by Congress over the 
one as over the other. It is rather unfortunate for this 
argument, that, if it applies to the extent to which the 
power to regulate foreign commerce has been carried by 
Congress, they may prohibit altogether this domestic com- 
merce, as they have heretofore, under the other power, pro- 
hibited foreign commerce. But why put extreme cases ? 
This government cannot go on one day without a mutual 
understanding and deference between the State and general 
governments. This government is the breath of the nostrils 
of the States. Gentlemen may say what they please of the 
preamble to the Constitution ; but this Constitution is not 
the work of the amalgamated population of the then exist- 
ing confederacy, but the offspring of the States ; and, how- 
ever high we may carry our heads, and strut and fret our 
hour, "dressed in a little brief authority," it is in the power 
of the States to extinguish this government at a blow. 



CCXXXVIII. 

PATRIOTIC AMBITION.— Henry Clay. 

I have been accused of ambition in presenting this meas- 
ure. Ambition ! inordinate ambition ! If I had thought 
of myself only, I should never have brought it forward. I 
know well the perils to which I expose myself; the risk of 
alienating faithful and valued friends, with but little pros- 
pect of making new ones, if any new ones could compen- 
sate for the loss of those whom we have long tried and 
loved ; and the honest misconceptions, both of friends and 



sterling's southern orator. 307 

foes. Ambition ! If I had listened to its soft and seducing 
whispers, if I had yielded myself to the dictates of a cold, 
calculating, and prudential policy, I would have stood still 
and unmoved. I might even have silently gazed on the 
raging storm, enjoyed its loudest thunders, and left those 
who are charged with the care of the vessel of state to con- 
duct it as they could. I have been heretofore often unjustly 
accused of ambition. Low, grovelling souls, who are utterly 
incapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler 
duties of pure patriotism — beings who, forever keeping 
their own selfish aims in view, decide all public measures 
by their presumed influence on their aggrandizement — judge 
me by the venal rule which they prescribe to themselves. 

I have given to the winds those false accusations, as I 
consign that which now impeaches my motives. I have no 
desire for office, not even the highest. The most exalted is 
but a prison, in which the incarcerated incumbent daily re- 
ceives his cold, heartless visitants, marks his weary hours, 
and is cut off from the practical enjoyment of all the bless- 
ings of genuine freedom. I am no candidate for any office 
in the gift of the people of these States, united or separated ; 
I never wish, never expect to be. Pass this bill, tranquillize 
the country, restore confidence and affection in the Union, 
and I am willing to go home to Ashland, and renounce pub- 
lic service forever. I should there find, in its groves, under 
its shades, on its lawns, amidst my flocks and herds, in the 
bosom of my family, sincerity and truth, attachment, and 
fidelity, and gratitude, which I have not always found in 
the walks of public life. Yes, I have ambition ; but it is 
the ambition of being the humble instrument, in the hands 
of Providence, to reconcile a divided people ; once more to 
revive concord and harmony in a distracted land ; the pleas- 
ing ambition of contemplating the glorious spectacle of a 
free, united, prosperous, and fraternal people. 



CCXXXIX. 

THE TARIFF— 1828.— George McDuffie. 

I said, sir, on another occasion, that the days of Roman 
liberty were numbered when the people consented to receive 
bread from the public granaries. From that moment it was 



308 sterling's southern orator. 

not the patriot who had shown the greatest capacity, and 
made the greatest sacrifices to serve the republic, but the 
demagogue who would promise to distribute most profusely 
the spoils of the plundered provinces, that was elevated to 
office by a degenerate and mercenary populace. Every 
thing became venal, even in the country of Fabricius, until 
finally the empire itself was sold at public auction ! And 
what, sir, is the nature and tendency of the system we are 
discussing? It bears an analogy, but too lamentably strik- 
ing, to that which corrupted the republican purity of the 
Roman people. God forbid that it should consummate its 
triumph over the public liberty, by a similar catastrophe, 
though even that is an event, by no means improbable, if 
we continue to legislate periodically in this way, and to 
connect the election of our chief magistrate with the ques- 
tion of dividing out the spoils of certain States — degraded 
into Roman provinces — among the influential capitalists of 
the other States of the Union. Sir, when I consider that 
by a single act, like the present, from five to ten millions 
of dollars may be transferred annually from one part of the 
community to another ; when I consider the disguise of dis- 
interested patriotism under which the basest and most 
profligate ambition may perpetrate such an act of injustice 
and political prostitution, I cannot hesitate, for a moment, to 
pronounce this very system of indirect bounties the most 
stupendous instrument of corruption ever placed in the 
hands of public functionaries. It brings ambition, and ava- 
rice, and wealth into a combination, which it is fearful to 
contemplate, because it is almost impossible to resist. 



CCXL. 

ASSUMPTIONS OF POWER BY FRANCE.— Miles Taylok. 

Now, sir, what is the spectacle presented at this day ? 
We see the greatest military power of the earth asserting 
rights unknown to the law of nations ; claiming to influence 
the action of neighboring states, so that they shall violate 
the great principles of national law, and refuse the right of 
asylum to those who flee from her jurisdiction to escape the 
pressure of tyranny. Do we not know that France has 



sterling's southern orator. 309 

exerted her power over the Swiss Cantons ? Do we not 
know that she has exerted her power over the kingdom of 
Sardinia ? Do we not know that she has exerted her power, 
and with success, over that country, kindred to ours, which 
lias hitherto been the secure asylum of the oppressed who 
fled from other states ? Why, sir, looking back upon the 
history of the past, is it not known to all that the right- of 
asylum was never questioned among civilized states V Do 
we not know that when military expeditions were headed 
by persons who had taken refuge in France, for the purpose 
of overthrowing the English government, expelling the 
then reigning monarch, and placing in his stead one who 
had become a refugee, no such right was ever claimed or 
asserted by England ? When those who invaded England, 
for the purpose of reestablishing the family of the Stuarts, 
escaped into France, they were safe ; they found a secure 
asylum. And has not England also been, at all times, a 
secure asylum for those fleeing from France ? • Yes, sir ; 
but how long will she continue to be so ? Would she have 
been so to-day but for the resolution and firmness of the 
English people ? Do we not know that now, within the 
last few months, the English government has descended 
from its former high position on that question, and taken a 
different attitude ? It is known to all that England — that 
mighty power upon whose possessions tc the sun never sets ;" 
" the tap of whose, morning drum, keeping company with 
the hours, circles the globe ;" England, who has made it 
her boast that she was mistress of the seas ; England, the 
jailer of the first Napoleon — that she, even she, has yielded 
to the pressure of that power, and consented, through her 
rulers, to become the police officer, the bailiff of the third 
Napoleon. 



CCXIiI. 

THE PLEASURES OP SCIENCE.— R. M. T. Hunter. 

Of all our pleasures upon earth, there are probably none 
so pure or great as those which arise from the conscious- 
ness of grand intellectual discovery, and the fact of hav- 
ing planted the flag-staff of human dominion in some re- 



810 sterling's southern orator. 

gion of the great domain of human thought, which we 
have been the first to find and appropriate to the uses of 
man. The achievements and the blood-bought conquests 
of war can never yield so large or so pure a delight, un- 
less indeed they lead to results as good in a moral as they 
are great in a military point of view. Alexander after 
Arbela, Caesar after Pharsalia, Augustus after Actium, or 
Napoleon after Austerlitz, probably felt not half the satis- 
faction of Archimedes when the idea of specific gravity 
first struck him, and he ran through the streets of Syra- 
cuse, shouting ' Eureka ;' or of Kepler, when he discovered 
the great laws of planetary motion ; or of Newton, when 
he first conceived the grand thought of gravitation, the uni- 
versal law which governs the movement of all matter 
through space ; or of Leibnitz and Newton, himself, when, 
by separate patjhs of discovery, they detected the mighty 
powers of the calculus, and placed its vast machinery in 
the hands # of the physical inquirer; or of Franklin, when he 
drew lightning from heaven, and demonstrated not only 
the identity of this mighty agent of nature w T ith the electric 
fluid of his Leyden jar, but also its subordination to the laws 
which were already known to be applicable to that fluid. 
Here are fields of battle not strewed with dead men's 
bones, or bedewed with the tears of human suffering ; here 
are opportunities ol achievement, which we may use with- 
out depending upon armies for assistanceor upon our fellow- 
men for a place to be assigned us, in order that we may 
engage in the struggle ; here are triumphs which we may 
lead up undisturbed by the moan of the captive, or the wail 
of human victims, as they walk chained behind the wheel. 
Here, too, are immortal captains, who return from the vast 
fields of human thought loaded with the spolia opima of 
their conquests ; but they bring no wooden effigies clothed 
in the armor of murdered princes to be offered in the tem- 
ple of Jupiter Feretrius ; they bear their mighty spoils in 
the imperishable forms of truth, robed in the native light 
from heaven, and to be consecrated on the altar of the 
great temple of Science, where they will represent no fallen 
majesty, but become great, beneficent, and living influences. 



sterling's southern orator. 311 

CCXLII. 

THE MAJESTY OF GOD.— Anonymous 

We are dazzled with the splendor of riches, we admire 
the palaces of kings, the magnificence of their furniture, 
the pomp of their clothing, the beauty of their apartments, 
and the abundance of gold, silver, the precious stones, 
which lie on every side ; but how little is all this compared 
with the riches of the Lord our God, whose throne is in the 
heavens, and whose footstool is the earth! The heavens 
are His, and the earth also ; the habitable world and all 
that dwell therein. He has fitted up dwellings for all crea- 
tures, He has established stores for all men and all animals, 
He causes grass to grow for cattle and corn for the service 
of men. All that is useful and excellent in the world 
is drawn from His treasures. Life, health, riches, glory, 
happiness, every thing that can constitute the good of His 
creatures, are all in His hands, and He distributes them 
according to His good pleasure. 

We judge of the greatness of men by their actions. We 
celebrate kings who have built cities and palaces, who have 
governed their estates well, and who have successfully 
accomplished great designs. But how astonishing are the 
works of the Most High ! How wonderful the creation of 
the immense universe, the preservation of so many crea- 
tures, the wise and beautiful government of innumerable 
worlds, the redemption of the human race, the punishment 
of the wicked, and the recompense of the good ! 

Who is like unto Thee, O Lord ! Thou art great, Thy name 
is great, and Thy works proclaim Thy grandeur ! Nothing 
can be imagined equal to the greatness of our God. All 
the glory, all the knowledge, all the power, and all the 
riches of the world vanish when compared with the glory 
and majesty of God. The soul exults and is ennobled 
in meditating on the greatness of the Most High. Such 
sublime meditations delightfully exercise all our spiritual 
faculties — we are filled with reverence, admiration, and joy, 
when in a holy transport we represent to our mind the 
Being of beings, the Eternal, Almighty, the Infinite ! Can 
we help exclaiming with ecstasy : The Lord, He is God ! 
The Lord He is God ! Give glory to Him forever and ever ! 



312 sterling's southern* orator. 

CCXLIII. 
REPUBLICS.— H. S. Legah:e. 

The name of republic is inscribed upon the most imper- 
ishable monuments of the species, and it is probable that 
it will continue to be associated, as it has been in all past 
ages, with whatever is heroic in character, and sublime in 
genius, and elegant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts 
and letters. It would not be difficult to prove that the base 
hirelings who have so industriously inculcated a contrary 
doctrine have been compelled to falsify history and abuse 
reason. It might be asked triumphantly, what land has 
ever been visited with the influences of liberty, that has not 
flourished like the spring ? What people has ever worship- 
ped at her altars without kindling with a loftier spirit and 
putting forth more noble energies ? Where has she ever 
acted that her deeds have not been heroic ? Where has 
she ever spoken that her eloquence has not been triumphant 
and sublime? 

With respect to ourselves, would it not be enough to say 
that we live under a form of government and in a state of 
society to which the world has never yet exhibited a par- 
allel ? Is it, then, nothing to be free ? How many nations 
in the whole annals of human kind have proved themselves 
worthy of being so ? Is it nothing that we are republicans ? 
Were all men as enlightened, as brave, as proud as they 
ought to be, would they suffer themselves to be insulted 
with any other title ? Is it nothing that so many independ- 
ent sovereignties should be held together in such a confed- 
eracy as ours ? What does history teach us of the difficulty 
of instituting and maintaining such a policy, and of the glo- 
ry that, of consequence, ought to be given to those who en- 
joy its advantages in so much perfection and on so grand 
a scale ? For can any thing be more striking and sublime 
than the idea of an imperial republic, spreading over an ex- 
tent of territory more immense than the empire of the Cae- 
sars, in the accumulated conquests of a thousand years — 
without prefects, or proconsuls, or publicans — founded in 
the maxims of common sense — employing within itself no 
arms but those of reason — and known to its subjects only 
by the blessings it bestows or perpetuates, yet capable of 



sterling's southern orator. 813 

directing against a foreign foe all the energies of a military 
despotism — a republic in which men are completely insig- 
nificant, and principles and laws exercise, throughout its vast 
dominions, a peaceful and irresistible sway, blending in one 
divine harmony such various habits and conflicting opinions, 
and mingling in our institutions the light of philosophy 
with all that is dazzling in the associations of heroic achieve- 
ment and extended domination, and deep-seated and for- 
midable power ! 



CCXLIV. 
EULOGY OX JOHN C. CALHOUN.— D. Webster. 

His demeanor as a senator is known to us all — is appre- 
ciated, venerated by us all. No man was more respectful 
to others ; no man carried himself with greater decorum ; 
no man with superior dignity. I think there is not one of 
us but felt, when he last addressed us from his seat in the 
Senate, — his form, still erect, with a voice by no means in- 
dicating such a degree of physical weakness as did, in fact, 
possess him, with clear tones, and an impressive, and, I may 
say, an imposing manner, — who did not feel that he might 
imagine that he saw before us a senator of Rome, when 
Rome survived. 

Mr. President, he had the basis, the indispensable basis, 
of all high character ; and that was, unspotted integrity, 
unimpeached honor and character. If he had aspirations, 
they were high, and honorable, and noble. There was noth- 
ing grovelling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the 
head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, 
perfectly patriotic and honest, as I am sure he was, in the 
principles that he espoused, and in the measures that he de- 
fended, aside from that large regard for that species of 
distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the 
benefit of the republic, I do not believe he had a selfish 
motive or selfish feeling. 

However, sir, he may have differed from others of us in 
his political opinions or his political principles, those prin- 
ciples and those opinions will now descend to posterity un- 
der the sanction of a great name. He has lived long enough, 
he has done enough, and he has done it so well, so success- 
14 



814 sterling's southern orator, 

fully, so honorably, as to connect himself for all time with 
the records of his country. He is now an historical charac- 
ter. Those of us who have known him here will find that 
he has left upon our minds and our hearts a strong and last- 
ing impression of his person, his character, and his public 
performances, which, while we live, will never be obliterated. 
We shall hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a grateful 
recollection that we have lived in his age, that we have 
been his contemporaries, that we have seen him, and heard 
him, and known him. We shall delight to speak of him to 
those who are rising up to fill our places. And, when the 
time shall come when we ourselves shall go, one after an- 
other, in succession, to our graves, we shall carry with us a 
deep sense of his genius and character, his honor and in- 
tegrity, his amiable deportment in private life, and the purity 
of his exalted patriotism. 



COXIiV. 

THE DIGNITY OF LABOR.— William L. Scott. 

Ay, and there is a department of agriculture, that of 
gardening, in which the mothers and daughters of the land 
can make themselves eminently useful. The lilies " toil not, 
neither do they spin ;" but you are not lilies. You are of 
an order of beings next to the angels, — don't forget that 
man is of that order of beings too ! — but your stupendous 
height above that tiny flower of the mead, and your close 
proximity to those bright creatures, who teem the upper 
air, do not unfit you for keeping and dressing your husband's 
and father's gardens. That was the primal employment of 
our first great father ; that was his occupation when he was 
morally and mentally perfect. Nor is there a more innocent 
or engaging earthly employment. There, in the wilds of 
the garden, it is true, he lost his original purity ; but there 
you can reflect upon the matchless perfections of our Creator 
as displayed in the delicately formed flowers, — there you 
can look through them, as beauteous telescopes, up to the 
mercy-seat of Him who made them, that your original sin 
may be washed out and your spirits made spotless as snow 
when first it drifteth from the sky. 



sterling's southern orator. 315 

But you are not to be good only, you are also to be use- 
ful. In usefulness there is a daily beauty, an exceeding 
weight of glory. You are not to cultivate flowers, which 
so much refine the heart and mind, to the neglect of beans, 
peas, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, and cabbages. These save 
to your husbands and fathers many a bushel of wheat and 
corn and many a pound of bacon and beef. Nor is there 
any thing undignified or disgraceful in horticulture, unless 
you surrender your gardens to grass and weeds. Silly, 
giddy-headed girls may think so ; but Lady Washington, 
the mother of the " father of our country," was working in 
the garden when the Marquis De La Fayette, conducted by 
her grandson, presented himself before her to receive her 
blessing ere his departure for his beloved France. w Clad 
in domestic-made clothes, and her gray head," — she was then 
very aged, — " covered in a plain straw hat," that now sainted 
mother greeted him with, u Ah, Marquis ! you see an old 
woman, — but come, I can make you welcome to my poor 
dwelling without the parade of changing my dress." O 
simplicity inconceivably charming ! O nobleness, infinitely 
distinguishing ! Pride, that cancer of human bliss, false, 
hollow-hearted, high-vaulting pride, had no place in her 
good and guileless heart ! The mere tinsel of dress, the 
sickening flummery of aristocratic blockheads, — she knew 
the Marquis was not one, — and pretty bodies too nice to 
work excited in her that disgust which they ever merit ! 
Live like her, labor like her, busy yourselves with the needle 
and the bodkin, and look after the vegetables and the flow- 
ers, and you will be like " apples of gold in pictures of sil- 
ver," lovely, indescribably fascinating to all good and sen- 
sible men ! 



CCXLVI. 

CHRISTIANITY AND INFIDELITY IN CONTRAST. 

Rev. S. Robinson, D.D. 

The mysteries of Christianity all lie in a region where 
finite reason cannot, in the nature of the case, be expected 
to reach them. The mysteries of infidelity, equally inexpli- 



316 sterling's southern orator. 

cable, originate merely in its own self-contradictions. The 
religion which Christianity offers to the w^orld is a religion 
of fact, which the learned and the ignorant can alike com- 
prehend. The religion which infidelity presents, when it 
presents any religion at all, is a religion of subtle and re- 
fined speculations beyond the comprehension of all but a 
few and acute thinkers. The sanctions of Christianity 
appeal directly to man's conscience, and to his instinctively 
felt relation to God as his Ruler and Judge. The sanctions 
alike of all the systems of scepticism, to the lowest views 
of his self-interest. The evidences of Christianity, aside 
from the intrinsic fitness of its doctrines to his spiritual 
nature, rest upon facts, the force of which any man can 
comprehend. The evidence of any system of faith provided 
by scepticism must rest upon subtle and refined deductions, 
of the correctness of which even the most learned can never 
feel absolutely certain. The authoritative standard of 
Christian faith presents a unity, absolutely miraculous, 
between men of every variety of natural gifts, extending 
over a period of fifteen hundred years. vThe diversities of 
scepticism are almost equally wonderful, but only as ex- 
hibiting the endless vagaries of the human mind. Christian 
philosophy, w 7 ith its fundamental fact admitted concerning a 
revelation, can explain on .almost any theory the phenomena 
of humanity and of the universe. Infidelity, repudiating 
that fact, runs into every conceivable absurdity in the at- 
tempt to construct a theory of the universe. Christianity 
contains mysteries. Infidelity exhibits endless contradictions. 
Christianity teaches doctrines which excite the hostility of 
the human heart. Infidelity promulges dogmas which do 
violence to the human understanding. Christianity is ac- 
cused of setting at naught the laws of reason and of evi- 
dence ; and of opening a door to all manner of imposture 
upon the credulity of the world. Infidelity subverts all the 
laws of evidence, and, if consistent with itself, makes all 
history one vast blank. In its sublimest results it leaves 
man's soul doubtful of its own existence, without moral 
principle to guide and enlighten it — man's intellect to be- 
come " a mind void of judgment," — and the whole race of 
man to an eternal orphanage, wandering forever the sport 
of a fitful chance, or, what is no better, left to the guid- 
ance of certain blind " natural laws," or to the iron rule of 
a cold and heartless destiny.* 



sterling's southern orator. 317 



CCXLVII. 

OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF THE SPREAD OF THE 
GOSPEL.— Rev. M. D. Hoge, D.D. 

In an age when the immortality of the soul was scarcely- 
believed, no assertion could have been more provocative 
of ridicule and scorn than that the body which had seen 
corruption and returned to its native earth would be re- 
vived, reanimated, and clothed with immortality. It was 
the annunciation of this doctrine which caused the apostle 
to be regarded as a madman by the Romans. 

What ! were they to be told that the bodies which had 
mouldered and mingled with their kindred dust, and then 
been dissipated by all the winds of heaven — that the bodies 
whose very tombs had crumbled to atoms, and vanished not 
only from the sight, but from the remembrance of men — 
were to be raised to life again ? Were they to be persuad- 
ed that the elements even disgorge the particles which 
they had swallowed up ? that not only the earth, but the 
sea should give up its dead ? that the forms of those who 
went down into the fathomless caverns of the deep in the 
shock of battle and tempest would emerge from their hid- 
den chambers, and darken the blue bosom of the ocean as 
they arose to be judged with those who had slept in the 
earth ? Would the warm pulse of life again throb in the 
scattered dust of Aristotle ? Would Socrates, and Plato, 
and those ancient sages who had indulged rather in the 
fond hope than in the confident belief of a future exist- 
ence, again stand erect upon the earth, and gaze upon that 
sun which centuries ago had looked down upon their 
graves ? No, a doctrine so startling and incredible was 
worthy only of mockery. 

But there was another and far greater obstacle to the 
prevalence of such a view of a future life as that presented 
by the apostles. The heaven which they revealed to the 
faith of mortals was no such elysium as that which mythol- 
ogy had delighted to present ; no flowery abode of sensual 
joys and pleasures ministering to the natural tastes and 
passions of men ; no paradise where feasting and revelry 
ruled the hour, where black-eyed houris reposed in every 
bower, and whose perfumed air ever vibrated with dulcet 



318 sterling's southern orator. 

melodies, such as Mohammed promised to the faithful (and of 
which he permitted them to enjoy such large prelibations 
in this life) — but a world whose element was holiness, one 
which excluded all but the pure in heart, which did not 
offer one attraction to the covetous, the ambitious, the li- 
centious, or the revengeful — one which could be attained 
only by a path narrow, rugged, and difficult of ascent. 

Point out to men a heaven where the pleasures of sense 
may be enjoyed in a more exquisite degree, and enjoyed 
forever ; a heaven to which Dives may go with his purple 
robes and rosy wine ; where all the natural inclinations and 
unhallowed propensities may find unbounded gratification, 
freed from the restraints of law and the checks of con- 
science ; and men will rivet their eager eyes upon it, and 
if possible force the gates and scale the ramparts of a par- 
adise so alluring. But discarding the doctrine of a divine 
influence, what could so change the natural heart of man 
as to cause it to aspire to the pure spiritual joys of a hea- 
ven like that revealed in the Gospel ? Whence did myriads 
obtain those tastes which gave them a relish for the hal- 
lowed enjoyments and employments of glorified beings ? 
Whence did impure, grovelling mortals derive those qualifi- 
cations which prepared for the exalted services of a world 
of purity, for the dignity and the dominion of kings and 
priests unto God ? If such a heaven became attractive to 
the eyes and hearts of mortals, it was because their eyes 
were opened, by some divinely exerted power, to the per- 
ception of spiritual beauty to which they had been blind be- 
fore, and their hearts to the reception and love of truths 
which otherwise had been objects of disgust and aversion. 



CCXLVIII. 

MISERIES OF WAR.— W. M. Cocke. 

Yes, how many have silently passed away, where death 
stalks abroad like " destruction that wasteth at noonday ;" 
who can tell ? Of those discharged from the service for 
disability, this report shows that there were six thousand 
five hundred and fifty-eight ; but how many of those died 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 319 

on their way to their homes, after their discharge, no state- 
ment can be made. At least one third have doubtless died 
of diseases contracted in the service ; and the total sacrifice 
of lives in battle and by diseases cannot fall short of fifteen 
thousand. And to all this add those mangled frames that 
have succeeded in reaching their homes, as melancholy 
monuments daily to remind us of the horrid carnage, and 
destruction, and desolation that are consequent on wars ! 
We cannot pass through the streets even now without 
meeting the remnants of men whose limbs have been torn 
from their bodies. 

But look, again, at the disastrous effects of this war over 
the whole country, and not alone on the brave soldiers who 
have fought our battles. Behold the widows and orphans 
that have been left husbandless and fatherless. How are 
we going to " indemnify" them for the past, and give them 
" security" for the future ? Go to the country, visit their 
mountain homes, hunt out the widows and orphans, enter 
the hovels of sorrow and misfortune, witness their desola- 
tion, and then talk to them of u indemnity for the past and 
security for the future." What indemnity will restore a 
husband to the widow, and a father to the fatherless ? On 
whom are they to lean, now that their earthly stay and sup- 
port is gone ? Oh ! go to them in their wretchedness, and 
talk to them of " indemnity," and their tears will fall like 
burning curses upon your garments. Bravely did our sol- 
diers bear aloft the banner of our country in Mexico. 
Wherever danger was present, they were ready to rally. 
On every battle-field of Mexico, how much of the best blood 
of our land has been poured out as an evidence of their de- 
votion to their country ! How sanguinary soever the con- 
flict might be, they followed wherever they were called 
upon to go ; and the best and noblest spirits of which this 
country could boast have been offered up on the altar of 
their country, and yet the place of their burial is forgotten 
and unknown. But the little streams that burst fresh from 
the bloody heights of Cerro Gordo, trickling on their wind- 
ing way to the ocean, murmur the requiem of the gallant 
dead, while the dreary valley of Mexico — 

" Waves above them lier green leaves, 
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops . . . 
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, 
Over the unreturning brave." 



320 sterling's southern orator. * 

CCXLIX. 

THE MICROSCOPE AND THE TELESCOPE.— E. Eveeett. 

Before the admiring student of nature has realized all 
the wonders of the older world thus, as it were, re-created 
by science, another delightful instructress, with her micro- 
scope in hand, bids him sit down and learn at last to know 
the universe in which he lives ; and contemplate the limbs, 
the motions, the circulations of races of animals, disporting 
in their tempestuous ocean — a drop of water. Then, while 
his whole soul is penetrated with admiration of the power 
which has filled with life, and motion, and sense, these all 
but non-existent atoms, — oh, then, let the divinest of the 
muses, let astronomy approach, and take him by the hand ; 
let her 

" Come, but keep her wonted state, 
With even step and musing gait, 
And looks commercing with the skies, 
Her rapt soul sitting in her eyes." 

Let her lead him to the mount of vision ; let her turn her 
heaven-piercing tube to the sparkling vault ; through that, 
let him observe the serene star of evening, and see it trans- 
formed into a cloud-encompassed orb, a world of rugged 
mountains and stormy deeps ; or behold the pale beams 
of Saturn, lost to the untaught observer amidst myriads of 
brighter stars, and see them expand into the broad disk of 
a noble planet — the seven attendant worlds — the wondrous 
rings — a mighty system in itself, borne at the rate of twenty- 
two thousand miles an hour, on its broad pathway through 
the heavens ; and then let him reflect that our great solar 
system, of which Saturn and his stupendous retinue is but 
a small part, fills itself, in the general structure of the uni- 
verse, but the space of one fixed star ; and that the power 
which filled the drop of water with millions of living be- 
ings is present and active throughout this illimitable cre- 
ation. Yes, yes, 

" The undevout astronomer is mad 1" 






sterling's southern orator. 321 

CCL. 

AMERICAN LITERATURE.— James B. Shepard. 

We are often reproached with the remark that as a 
nation we have no permanent literature of our own, and 
are dependent upon other countries, and especially upon 
England, for those masterly intellectual achievements that 
fix the attention and command the respect and admiration 
of mankind. There may be some truth in the remark. Our 
country is yet in its infancy. Twice in the short space of 
sixty years have we been compelled to beat back from our 
shores the hostile forces of the very power on whom we are 
told we depend for intellectual food ; cities had to be built ; 
forests cleared away ; and the veins of a young but mighty 
empire surcharged with the circulating streams of wealth ; 
and it is indeed wonderful that we have effected what we 
have in the fields of literature. They ask for our poets. 
Let us point to them. There are Bryant and Percival, and 
a host of others — men who have written, not for pay, but 
for glory, and whose works will exist as long as many of 
those of the boasted ornaments of England. But the 
spirit of poetry is everywhere in our country. It is here a 
spirit of action and of eloquence. It flashes in the fires of 
the thundering locomotive ; it lives with the steam- vessel 
upon the angry billows ; it mounts up with the balloon to- 
ward the throne of the sun ; and it borrows a language 
from the storms, and speaks from the hearts of our people 
in response to the stern, strong eloquence of our orators. 
Why, our very eloquence is poetry ! What was Patrick 
Henry — with his strong and fiery Saxon sentences, his love 
of justice and truth, his disdain of wrong and falsehood, his 
indignant denunciations of a corrupt ministry, and his 
matchless vindications of his* struggling country — what 
was he but the impersonation of poetry itself? True, he 
was no rhymer, but he spoke the thoughts that poetry is 
made of. 



822 sterling's southern orator 

COLI. 

AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION.— J. M. Berrien. 

Sir, I do not limit my appeal to Southern senators : I ad- 
dress myself to senators from whatever quarter of the 
Union. I appeal to them as American senators, and I ad- 
jure them by their recollections of the past — by their hopes 
of the future — as they value the free institutions which 
the mercy of Providence permits us to enjoy — by all these 
considerations I entreat them to unite with us in excluding 
from the national councils this demon of discord. The ac- 
quisition of territory which it is proposed to accomplish by 
this bill must bring upon us, with accumulated force, a 
question which even now menaces the permanence of our 
Union. I know the firmness of your determination to ex- 
ert your constitutional powers to prevent the extension of 
our domestic institutions. I know the various consider- 
ations which unite to constitute that determination, and to 
give to it its unyielding, irrevocable character. I do not 
mean to discuss this question with you, still less to speak 
in the language of menace. That is alike forbidden by my 
respect for myself, for you, and for the dignity and the in- 
terests of my constituents ; but I entreat you to' listen to 
truth, dispassionately, calmly announced to you. 

Your determination to deny this right to the South is not 
more fixed and unwavering than theirs to assert it. You 
do not believe that Southern men will silently acquiesce in, 
will tamely submit to the denial to them of that which, in 
their deliberate judgment, is the common right of all the 
people of the United States. If we have a right to acquire 
territory — if that acquisition be made by the common effort 
of all the States — by the blood and treasure of all — if all 
have a common right to share what all have united to ac- 
quire — then the exclusion of the South must result in one 
of two things. They must give an unexampled manifesta- 
tion of their devotion to the bond of our Federal Union, by 
submitting to this exclusion, or sadly, though resolutely, de- 
termine, at whatever hazard, and even against you their 
brothers in that sacred bond, to assert and maintain their 
rights. You know them well enough to know which of 
these alternatives they will adopt. I do most earnestly 



sterling's southern orator. 323 

hope that we may never be brought to so fearful a crisis. 
The danger menaces us even now ; but the patriotism and 
intelligence of the American people will, I trust, avert it ; 
will teach us, and will teach you, that our safety, that your 
safety, that the common safety of all alike, forbid the acqui- 
sition of territory, if we would continue to enjoy the pre- 
cious legacy which has been transmitted to us — a rich, al- 
most boundless domain, capable of ministering to all our 
wants, of gratifying all our desires, and a glorious Constitu- 
tion, which a world in arms would vainly assail while we 
rally round it in our united strength. 



CCLII. 
VINDICATION OF SOUTH-CAROLINA.— G. McDuffie. 

Sir, I feel that I am called upon to vindicate the motives 
and the character of the people of South-Carolina from im- 
putations which have been unjustly cast upon them. There 
is no State in this Union distinguished by a more lofty and 
disinterested patriotism than that which I have the honor, 
in part, to represent. I can proudly and confidently appeal 
to history for proof of this assertion. ~No State has made 
greater sacrifices to vindicate the common rights of the Union 
and preserve its integrity. No State is more willing to make 
those sacrifices now, whether of blood or treasure. 

But, sir, it does not belong to this lofty spirit of patriot- 
ism to submit to unjust and unconstitutional oppression ; nor 
is South-Carolina to be taunted with the charge of treason 
and rebellion, because she has the intelligence to understand 
her rights, and the spirit to maintain them. God has not 
planted in the breast of man a higher and holier principle 
than that by which he is prompted to resist oppression. 
Absolute submission and passive obedience, for every ex- 
treme of tyranny, are the characteristics of slaves only. 

The oppression of the people of South-Carolina has been 
carried to an extremity which the most slavish population 
on earth would not endure without a struggle. Is it to be 
expected, then, that freemen will patiently bow down and 
kiss the rod of the oppressor? Freemen, did I say ? Why, 



324 sterling's southern orator. 

sir, any one who has the form and bears the name of a man — 
nay, a a beast that wants discourse of reason," a dog, a 
sheep, a reptile — the vilest reptile that crawls upon the earth 
without the gift of reason to comprehend the injustice of its 
injuries — would bite, or bruise, or sting the hand by which 
they were inflicted. 

Is it, then, for a sovereign State to fold her arms and stand 
still in submissive apathy, when the loud clamors of the 
people whom Providence has committed to her charge are 
ascending to heaven for justice ? Hug not this delusion to 
your breast, I pray you. 

It is not for me to say, in this place, what course South- 
Carolina may deem it her duty to pursue in this great emer- 
gency. It is enough to say "that she perfectly understands 
the ground which she occupies; and be assured, sir, that 
whatever attitude she may assume, in her highest sovereign 
capacity, she will firmly and fearlessly maintain it, be the 
consequences what they may. The responsibility will not 
rest upon her, but upon her oppressors. 



CCLIII. 

INTEMPERANCE.— Rev. William Hooper, D.D. 

Who can do justice to the feelings of those parents whose 
son, just ripening into manhood, is dying before their eyes, 
the loathsome victim of his guilty excesses ! How shall they 
escape from the hideous spectacle ? Their own house the 
only place they have to lay their head, the birthplace of 
their children, the spot where are clustered all their com- 
forts, the peaceful sanctuary of their old age, becomes the 
hospital of their reprobate son, worn out with intemperance. 
He occupies one of the chambers. There, while they lie on 
their sleepless beds in a neighboring room, they hear him 
call for drink, his disgusting belches, his horrid execrations 
against himself, and ever and anon a groan, bespeaking 
misery too big for words to tell ! And is this the return you 
make, degraded young man, for all the loving-kindness of 
your parents ? Is this the way you requite the father that 
dandle^ your infancy on his knee, and from that time till 
the present has been toiling to provide for your happiness? 



sterling's southern orator. 325 

Is this your gratitude to the mother who brought you forth, 
that cherished you in her bosom, that rocked your cradle with 
throbbing temples and an aching heart, that watched you 
all along your playful boyhood with ceaseless tenderness, 
and at length let you go from under her eye to a place of 
education, only from the confidence (a confidence, alas ! too 
much misplaced) that the principles and the gratitude with 
which she had imbued you would forever forbid you to 
distress her by a vicious life? Surely this, if any thing in 
the world, realizes the fable of the frozen viper, that, as soon 
as it was thawed into life, struck its envenomed fangs into 
the bosom that warmed it. 



CCIiIV. 
THE SAME— Concluded. 



But I would not stop at the exhibition of the temporal, 
the earthly consequences of this worst of habits. Could I 
do it, I would disturb the slumbers of the dead — I would 
evoke from their tombs the myriads that have gone down 
thither before their time, the victims of drunkenness. I would 
array their ghastly spectres in a long line before you, sire 
by the side of son, and brother at the right hand of brother. 
I would call upon them to tell you of the first step that led 
to their undoing ; how they first trifled with their enemy — 
how they in thoughtless boyhood mixed with idle company ; 
made drunkenness a subject of jesting ; took a glass among 
their jovial friends, merely to appear social and manly when 
the liquor was not pleasant to their taste ; how the appetite 
grew with every indulgence until it was impossible to deny 
it — until they themselves became the very beastly spectacles 
of intemperance they had been accustomed to look upon 
with loathing and contempt ; how they lingered upon earth, 
becoming more and more the sorrow and shame of their 
friends, and at last sunk unregretted to the grave. I would 
extort from them " the secrets of their prison-house." I 
would make them appear before you surrounded with their 
atmosphere of tempestuous fire — open before you their tor- 
tured breasts, and disclose within the never-dying worm 



826 sterling's southern oratoe. 

gnawing on their hearts — tell you with their burning 
tongues the horrors of their doom, and peal in your trem- 
bling ears the declaration of the Almighty, that drunkards 
shall lie down in the " lake that burneth with fire and brim- 
stone forever and ever." I should hope that such a vision 
would make you shun for life the sight, smell, and taste of 
inebriating liquors. 



CCIiV. 

RELIGION, UNION, AND LIBERTY ARE OUR HERITAGE. 
Rev. James Craik, D.D. 

I should be false to you and to myself if I stopped here ; 
if I did not remind you that there must be an element of 
stability and healthfulness in the social body as well as in 
the body politic. No form of free government can be ad- 
ministered unless by a people worthy of such a blessing, 
and capable of such a trust. 

Religion is that essential element in the constitution of 
society, without which society could hardly exist at all, and 
certainly could rise to no form of dignity or power. Relig- 
ion is the foundation of all morality, the sanction of all 
law, the creator of all civilization, the principle of all high 
and elevated character. True religion alone can teach men 
to look above themselves for a law which is controlling and 
paramount ; for a will to which the caprices of opinion and 
the impulses of passion must be alike submissive. 

Very different from this conception of religion v is the 
pseudo religious and moral fanaticism that has brought 
upon the country so many evils. The supreme deity which 
these men worship is the sublime Ego — the I myself. To 
this divinity they bow down in reverent adoration in all his 
changes and phases of opinion, fancy, and sentiment. It is 
a significant fact that the leaders of the abolition crusade 
first renounced the church of the living God ; and then, in 
following up their fancy, seek to overturn the Constitution 
of their country because that is in their way ; and at last 
many of them, for the same reason, make the Bible the ob- 
ject of their bitterest scorn and foul abuse. 



sterling's southern orator. 327 

My countrymen, stand by the old Bible, and the old faith, 
and the old constitution, and let this be your motto : relig- 
ion, and union, and liberty are our heritage, and we will 
transmit them to our children. 



CCLVI. 
LA FAYETTE.— Hon. John Q. Adams. 

Such was the life of Gilbert Mortier De La Fayette, 
and the record of his life is the delineation of his character. 
Consider him as one human being of one thousand millions, 
his contemporaries on the surface of the terraqueous globe. 
Among that thousand millions seek for an object of com- 
parison with him ; assume for the standard of comparison 
all the virtues which exalt the character of man above that 
of the brute creation; take the ideal man, little lower than 
the angels ; mark the qualities of the mind and heart which 
entitle him to this station of preeminence in the scale of 
created beings, and inquire who, that lived in the eight- 
eenth and nineteenth centuries of the Christian era, com- 
bined in himself so many of those qualities, so little alloyed 
with those which belong to that earthly vesture of decay 
in which the immortal spirit is inclosed, as La Fayette. 

Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you 
have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to 
which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish 
spirit of Napoleon ; class him among the men who, to com- 
pare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all 
ages ; turn back your eyes on the records of time ; summon 
from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead 
of every age and every clime — and where, among the race 
of merely mortal men, shall one be found who, as the ben- 
efactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of La 
Fayette ? 



328 sterling's southern orator. 

CCLVII. 
CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY.— J. P. Benjamin. 

Now, Mr. President, I come to another point in my argu- 
ment, which I approach with extreme pain, with unfeigned 
regret. From my earliest childhood, I have been taught to 
revere the judges of the highest court in the land, as men 
selected to render justice between litigants, not more by 
reason of their eminent legal acquirements, than because of 
a spotless purity of character, an undimmed lustre of repu- 
tation which removed them far, far beyond even a doubt of 
their integrity. The long line of eminent judicial worthies 
which seemed to have culminated in a Marshall has been 
continued in the person of one upon whom the highest eu- 
logium that can be pronounced is to say that he was emi- 
nently worthy of being the successor of that illustrious 
judge. I know not, Mr. President, whether you, as I, have 
had the good fortune to see that magistrate in the adminis- 
tration of justice in his own circuit, or in the court sitting 
below us, of which he is the honored chief. I know not, 
sir, whether it has been your good fortune, as it has been 
mine, to hear the expressions of affectionate reverence with 
which he is spoken of by the people amongst whom he has 
passed his pure, his simple, and his spotless life. I know 
not, sir, whether you have listened, as I have, with interest 
to the expressions of respect and admiration that come from 
the members of his bar, in their familiar intercourse with 
each other — spontaneous tributes, worth a thousand labored 
eulogies, to his eminent sagacity, to his vast legal learning, 
to the mild and serene dignity of his judicial deportment; 
above all, sir, above all to the conscientious, earnest, almost 
painful sense of responsibility with which he holds the scale 
of justice in even and impartial hand between the litigants 
whose rights depend upon his judgment. 

Mr. President, he is old, very old. The infirmities of 
age have bowed his venerable form. Earth has no further 
object of ambition for him ; and when he shall sink into his 
grave after along career of high office in our country, I trust 
that I do not rudely or improperly invade the sanctity of 
private life in saying that he will leave behind him, in the 
scanty heritage that shall be left for his family, the noblest 



sterling's southern orator. 329 

evidence that he died, as he had lived, a being honorable to 
the earth from which he sprang, and worthy of the heaven 
to which he aspired. 



CCIiVIII. 

THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON.— Rufus Choate. 

The birthday of the " Father of his Country !" May it 
ever be freshly remembered by American hearts. May it 
ever reawaken in them a filial veneration for his memory ; 
ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard to the country 
which he loved so well; to which he gave his youthful 
vigor and his youthful energy, during the perilous period of 
the early Indian warfare; to w T hich he devoted his life, in 
the maturity of his powers, in the field ; to which, again, he 
offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as 
President of the convention that framed our Constitution ; 
w r hich he guided and directed while in the chair of state, 
and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was 
offered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and 
so grandly, and so calmly to die. He was the first man of 
the time in which he grew. His memory is first and most 
sacred in our love ; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of 
blood shall freeze in the last American heart, his name shall 
be a spell of power and might. 

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, 
which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty 
and towering and matchless glory of his life, which enabled 
him to create his country, and, at the same time, secure an 
undying love and regard from the whole American people. 
"The first in the hearts of his countrymen !" Yes, first ! 
He has our first and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there 
were brave, and wise, and good men, before bis day, in 
every colony. But the American nation, as a nation, I do 
not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the first love 
of that young America was Washington. The first word 
she lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It 
still is her proud ejaculation, and it will be the last gasp of 
her expiring life. 



330 sterling's southern orator. 

Yes, others of our great men have been appreciated — 
many admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. 
About and around him we call up no dissentient, and dis- 
cordant, and dissatisfied elements — no sectional prejudice 
nor bias — no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None 
of these shall assail him. Yes, when the storm of battle 
blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washing- 
ton shall nerve every American arm, and cheer every Amer- 
ican heart. It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sub- 
lime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of country, 
which his words have commended, which his example has 
consecrated. 

" Where may the wearied eye repose, 
When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows, 

Nor despicable state ? 
Yes — one — the first, the last, the best, 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 
Whom envy dare not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington 
To make man blush there was but one." 



CCLIX. 

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.— Richard Henry Lee. 

The time will certainly come when the fated separation 
between the mother country and these colonies must take 
place whether you will or no ; for it is decreed by the very 
nature of things — by the progressive increase of our pop- 
ulation, the fertility of our soil, the extent of our territory, 
the industry of our countrymen, and the immensity of the 
ocean which separates the ' two countries. And if this be 
true — as it is most true — who does not see that the sooner 
it takes place the better ; that it would be the height of folly 
not to seize the present occasion, when British injustice has 
filled all hearts with indignation, inspired all minds with 
courage, united all opinions into one, and put arms in every 
hand ? And how long must we traverse three thousand 
miles of stormy sea to solicit of arrogant and insolent men 
either counsels or commands to regulate our domestic affairs ? 



sterling's southern orator. 331 

From what we have already achieved, it is easy to pre- 
sume what we shall hereafter accomplish. Have you not 
seen the enemy driven from Lexington by citizens armed 
and assembled in one day ? Already their most celebrated 
generals have yielded in Boston to the skill of ours. Already 
their seamen, repulsed from our coasts, wander over the 
ocean, the sport of tempests and the prey of famine. Let 
us hail the favorable omen, and fight not for the sake of 
knowing on what terms we are to be the slaves of union, 
but to secure to ourselves a free existence, to found a just 
and independent government. Why do we longer delay — 
why still deliberate ? Let this most happy day give birth 
to the American Republic. Let her arise, not to devastate 
and conquer, but to reestablish the reign of peace and of 
the laws. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us ; she de- 
mands of us a living example of freedom that may contrast 
by the felicity of the citizen, with the ever-increasing tyr- 
anny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us 
to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace 
and the persecuted repose. This is the end presaged by so 
many omens — by our first victories ; by the present ardor 
and union ; by the flight of Howe, and the pestilence that 
broke out among Dunmore's people; by the very w T inds 
that baffled the enemy's fleets and transports, and that terri- 
ble tempest which engulfed seven hundred upon the coast 
of Newfoundland. If we are not this day wanting in duty 
to our country, the names of the American legislators will 
be placed by posterity at the side of Theseus, of Lycurgus, 
of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and 
of all those whose memory has been and will be forever 
dear to virtuous men and good citizens. 



CCLX. 

THE LONE STAR OF TEXAS.— Webb. 

The brilliancy of its dawn gives token of a bright and 
glorious future. What eye that beheld that star arise but 
became animated and fired in the gaze upon its transcendent 
beauty, its wavering light, its divine struggles to gleam in 



332 sterling's southern orator. 

the ascendant ? Its feeble glimmer was first discerned amid 
the storm and tempest : occasionally, as the wrathful clouds 
would separate, its faint ray of youthful light and hope would 
dart forth, sprinkling, as with the roseate blush of morn, the 
thick panoply of surrounding gloom, and finding its way to 
the deep recesses of many a patriot bosom. The thunder of 
tyranny and the storms of oppression being well-nigh ex- 
hausted, this bright and beautiful, this lone star was seen 
standing out upon the broad and silvery heaven of Texas, 
in solitary but bold relief. 

No sister star was near to lend the light of her countenance, 
or greet it with an approving smile. Not a beam which ema- 
nated from its effulgence was borrowed : not a ray of light 
did it cast over a benighted land, but was given forth from 
its own brilliant and exhaustless orbit. Brighter and purer 
did it shine as it continued to rise and mount into the high 
heaven of hope and promise, but not without sometimes al- 
most failing to give token of its presence ; it flickered, as 
with expiring energy, over the fierce and unequal conflict at 
Conception, it was seen faintly glimmering over the gory 
plain of Goliad ; and sending out the last ray of its hope upon 
the awful scene of the Alamo. 

It moved despondingly through all these scenes of bloody 
strife, presided at each mortal combat^ cheered the weak and 
despairing, and shone with fearful dimness in that hour when 
the light of mortality of a Fannin and his brave companions 
was surrounded in the night of eternal infamy. But lo ! 
where next doth gleam this single star? Over the immor- 
tal struggle of San Jacinto it hangs suspended ; its light has 
relumed ; its rays enkindle with a sweeter, brighter, more 
entrancing fire ; the battle rages ; the fight is desperate, 
deadly ; the neighing of the war steed, the groaning of the 
dying soldier, the piercing, startling, enthusiastic cry of 
" Remember the Alamo !" all went up to heaven in a sol- 
emn league, and as they passed away, u the lone star of Tex- 
as" blazed forth in resplendent beauty and brightness, re- 
flecting all over the consecrated ground of Jacinto a light 
in which was seen written in blazing capitals, Victory ! Lib- 
erty ! Texas is free ! 



sterling's southern orator. 333 

CCLXI. 
ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS.— M. B. Lamar. 

Soldiers, your country calls you to her defence ! Your 
nomes, your firesides, the scenes of former joys and of com- 
ing glory, all the endearments of domestic happiness, and 
all the hopes of future competence and peace, summon you 
to the field. You are summoned, too, by the spirits of Fan- 
nin and Travis, and their gallant companions, whose blood 
has cemented the foundations of our freedom. Their flesh 
has been food for the raven, and their bones have whitened 
on the prairies unrevenged. 

Your pious patriotism has gathered those scattered relics 
with decent sepulchral honors to a soldier's grave ; but their 
glorified spirits, still hovering around the. home of their pa- 
triotic devotion, call upon you to sustain the independence 
which they have consecrated by martyrdom, and to recom- 
pense with merited vengeance the wrongs which they have 
endured from a perfidious and dastard enemy. Shall the call 
be made in vain ? shall we turn a deaf ear to the voice of 
our country and the beseeching cries of our murdered breth- 
ren ? Surely there can be no one so insensible to guilt and 
shame as to look with indifference upon the slaughter of his 
people and the desolation of his country. 

If there be so foul a blot upon humanity — if there be one 
in the whole limits of our land who is mean enough, when 
his home is invaded by an insolent foe, to seek safety in dis- 
honorable flight — I would say to him, "Detested recreant! 
retire to the shades of infamy, and sully no more a beautiful 
land, whose blessings belong to the brave and victorious." 
Let, then, every patriot soldier — every worthy citizen who 
abhors the name of traitor, and contemns the vile epithet of 
coward — rally to the call promptly around the unfurled ban- 
ner of freedom. Let him repair with impatient zeal to the 
theatre of his nation's glory, and there snatch, upon the 
brink of danger, fame for himself and safety for his rights. 

The dastard who lingers behind may live to fatten upon 
the fruits of his recreancy, but when he dies, he rots in infa- 
my to the joy of all; whilst the noble hero who makes his 
breast the bulwark of a people's liberty, will find a rich reward 
for toil and valor in the pride of conscious virtue and the 



334 sterling's southern orator. 

smiles of a grateful nation. If he fall in the holy cause, he 
will still survive in the affections of his comrades, and his 
name will gather glory with the flight of ages. 

" Each little rill, each mountain river, 
Rolls mingling with his fame forever " 



CCLXII. 
THE TEACHER.— Lord Brougham. 

There is nothing which the adversaries of improvement 
are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is 
termed the "march of intellect;" and here I will confess 
that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they are in the right. 
It is a very absurd, because a very incorrect expression. It 
is little calculated to describe the operation in question. It 
does not picture an image at all resembling the proceedings 
of the true friends of mankind. It much more resembles the 
progress of the enemy to all improvement. The conqueror 
moves in a march. He stalks onward with the " pride, pomp, 
and circumstance of war" — banners flying — shouts rending 
the air — guns thundering — and martial music pealing, to 
drown the shrieks of the wounded, and the lamentations for 
the slain. 

Not thus the schoolmaster, in his peaceful vocation. He 
meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless 
mankind ; he slowly gathers round him those who are to fur- 
ther their execution ; he quietly though firmly advances in 
his humble path, laboring steadily but calmly till he has 
opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up 
by the roots the weeds of vice. His is a progress not to be 
compared with any thing like a march ; but it leads to a far 
more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable 
than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, 
ever won. 

Such men — men deserving the glorious title of Teachers 
of Mankind — I have found, laboring conscientiously, though 
perhaps obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have 
gone. I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among 



sterling's southern orator. 335 

the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active 
French ; I have found them among the persevering, resolute, 
industrious Swiss ; I have found them among the laborious, 
the warm-hearted, the enthusiastic Germans ; I have found 
them among the high-minded but enslaved Italians ; and in 
our own country, God be thanked, their numbers every- 
where abound, and are every day increasing. 

Their calling is high and holy ; their fame is the property 
of nations ; their renown will fill the earth in after-ages, in 
proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Each 
one of those great teachers of the world, possessing his soul 
in peace, performs his appointed course ; awaits in patience 
the fulfilment of the promises ; and, resting from his labors, 
bequeaths his memory to the generation whom his works 
have blessed, and sleeps under the humble but not inglo- 
rious epitaph, commemorating " one in whom mankind lost 
a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy. 1 ' 



CCIiXIII. 
DESCRIPTION OF JUNIUS.— E. Bubke. 

Sir, how comes this Junius to have broken through the 
cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrolled, unpunished 
through the land? The myrmidons of the court have been 
long,and are still pursuing him in vain. They will not spend 
their time upon me, or you, or you. No ! they disdain such 
vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broken 
through all their toils, is before them. But what will all 
their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one than 
he lays down another dead at his feet. For my part, when 
I saw his attack upon the king, I own my blood ran cold. 
I thought he had ventured too far, and there was an end of 
his triumphs. Not that he had not asserted many truths. 
Yes, sir, there are in that composition many bold truths by 
which a wise prince might profit. It was the rancor and 
venom with which I was struck. In these respects the 
North-Briton is as much inferior to him as in strength, wit, 
and judgment. 

But while I expected, in this daring flight, his final ruin 



336 sterling's southern orator. 

and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down 
souse upon both Houses of Parliament. Yes, he did make 
you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his 
talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage. 
Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, sir ; he has 
attacked even you — he has — and I believe you have no rea- 
son to triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying 
away our royal eagle in his pounces, and dashing him 
against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. King, lords, and 
commons are but the sport of his fury. 

Were he a member of this House, what might not be 
expected from his knowledge, his firmness and integrity ? 
He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, 
by his penetration, by his vigor. Nothing would escape 
his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal 
nothing from his sagacity ; nor could promises nor threats 
.induce him to conceal any thing from the public. 



COLXIV. 
PROSPECT OF WAR— 1811.— John C. Calhoun. 

We are told of the danger of war. We are ready to ac- 
knowledge its hazard and misfortune, but I cannot think 
that we have any extraordinary danger to apprehend — at 
least, none to warrant an acquiescence in the injuries we 
have received. On the contrary, I believe no war would 
be less dangerous to internal peace or the safety of the 
country. 

In speaking of Canada, the gentleman from Virginia in- 
troduced the name of Montgomery with much feeling and 
interest. Sir, there is danger in that name to the gen- 
tleman's argument. It is sacred to heroism. It is indig- 
nant of submission. It calls our memory back to the time 
of our revolution, to the Congress of 1774 and 1775. Sup- 
pose a speaker of that day had risen and urged all the ar- 
guments which we have heard on this occasion ; had told 
that Congress, " Your contest is about the right of laying 
a tax ; the attempt on Canada has nothing to do with it ; the 
war will be expensive ; danger and devastation will over- 



sterling's southern orator. 337 

spread onr country, and the power of Great Britain is irre- 
sistible." With what sentiment, think you, would such 
doctrines have been received? Happy for us, they had no 
force at that period of our country's glory. Had such been 
acted on, this hall would never have witnessed a great peo- 
ple convened to deliberate for the general good ; a mighty 
empire, with prouder prospects than any nation the sun 
ever shone on, would not have risen in the West. No ; we 
would have been vile, subjected colonies, governed by 
that imperious rod which Britain holds over her distant 
provinces. 

The gentleman is at a loss to account for what he calls 
our hatred to England. He asks, " How can we hate the 
country of Locke, of Newton, Hampden, and Chatham — 
a country having the same language and customs with 
ourselves, and descended from a common ancestry ?" Sir, 
the laws of human affections are steady and uniform. If 
we have so much to attach us to that country, powerful, in- 
deed, must be the cause which has overpowered it. Yes, 
sir, there is a cause strong enough. Not that occult, courtly 
affection which he has supposed to be entertained for France, 
but continued and unprovoked insult and injury ; a cause so 
manifest that the gentleman had to exert much ingenuity 
to overlook it. But, in his eager admiration of that coun- 
try, he has not been sufficiently guarded in his argument. 
Has he reflected on the cause of that admiration ? Has he 
examined the reasons of our high regard for her Chatham ? 
It is his ardent patriotism ; his heroic courage, which could 
not brook the least insult or injury offered to his country, 
but thought that her interest and honor ought to be vindi- 
cated, be the hazard and expense what they might. I hope 
when we are called on to admire, we shall also be asked to 
imitate. 



CCLXV. 

ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

Alexander H. Stephens. 

We live, sir, not only in a new hemisphere, but, indeed, 
in a new age; and we have started a new system of govern- 
ment, as new and as different from those of the old world 
15 



338 sterling's southern" orator. 

as the Baconian system of philosophy was novel and different 
from the Aristotelian, and destined, perhaps, to produce 
quite as great a revolution in the moral and political world 
as his did in the scientific. Ours is the true American sys- 
tem, and though it is still regarded as an experiment by 
some, yet, so far, it has succeeded beyond the expectations 
of many of its best friends. And who is prepared now to 
rise up and say, u Thus far it shall go and no further" ? 

But I am in favor of this measure for another reason. It 
is, as the honorable chairman of the committee on foreign 
affairs said in his opening speech, in one sense and in one 
view, a sectional question — a Southern question. It will not 
promote our pecuniary interest, but it will give us political 
weight and importance ; and to this view I am not insensi- 
ble. And though I have a patriotism that embraces, I trust, 
all parts of the Union, and which causes me to rejoice to see 
all prosperous and happy ; and though I believe I am free from 
the influence of unjust prejudices and jealousies toward any 
part or section, yet I must confess that my feelings of attach- 
ment are most ardent toward that with which all my interests 
and associations are identified. And is it not natural and 
excusable that they should be? The South is my home — 
my fatherland. There sleep the ashes of my sires and grand- 
sires ; there are my hopes and prospects ; with her ray for- 
tunes are cast ; her fate is my fate, and her destiny my destiny. 
Nor do I wish " to hoax " gentlemen from other sections 
upon this point, as some have intimated. I am candid and 
frank in my acknowledgment. This acquisition will give 
additional power to the south-western section in the national 
councils ; and for this purpose I want it — not that I am 
desirous to see an extension of the " area of slavery," ^is 
some gentlemen have said its effects would be. I am no 
defender of slavery in the abstract. Liberty always had 
charms, for me, and I would rejoice to see all the sons of 
Adam's family, in every land and clime, in the enjoyment of 
those rights set forth in our Declaration of Independence 
as " natural and inalienable," if a stem necessity, bearing 
the marks and impress of the hafld of the Creator Himself 
did not, in some cases, interpose and prevent. Such is the 
case with the States in which slavery now exists. . . . 
It matters not, so far as this institution is concerned in the 
abstract, whether Texas be in the Union or out of it. That, 
therefore, is not my object ; but it is the political advantages 



sterling's southern orator. 339 

it will secure, with the question settled as proposed — leav- 
ing no door open for future agitation — and thus preserving a 
proper balance between the different sections of the country. 
This is my object ; and is it not proper and right ? 

If we look around, we see the East, by her economy, her 
industry, and enterprise, by her commerce, navigation, and 
mechanic arts, growing opulent, strong, and powerful. The 
West, w^hich a few years ago was nothing but an unbroken 
wilderness, embracing the broad and fertile valley of the 
Mississippi, where the voice of civilization was never heard, 
is now teeming with its millions of population. The tide of 
emigration, still rolling in that direction, has already reach- 
ed the base of the Rocky Mountains, and will soon break 
over those lofty barriers, and be diffused in the extensive 
plains of Oregon. Already the West vies for the ascendency 
on this floor; and why should not the South be also advanc- 
ing ? Are her limits never to be enlarged, and her influence 
and power never to be increased ? Is she to be left behind in 
this race for distinction and aggrandizement, if you please ? 
As one of her sons, I say no. Let her, too, enter the glo- 
rious rivalship ; not with feelings of strife, jealousy, or envy 
— such sentiments are not characteristic of her people — but 
with aspirations prompted by the spirit of a laudable emula- 
tion and an honorable ambition. 



CCLXVI. 

AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION— 1861.— John A. Gilmer. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have presented these considerations, 
hoping thereby to get us in proper frame of mind a^rid dis- 
position to work for the peace of this country, because I 
desire to do my duty, and my whole duty, while I am in the 
Union ; and if I am forced to go out of it, I maybe also enabled 
to do my duty then. I tell gentlemen that if, in spite of all 
the efforts of wise and good men, the State from which I 
come decides to dissolve her connection with this Govern- 
ment, my destinies are, and will be with her. I know that, 
when that event occurs, peace cannot long continue. A war, 
a terrible . war, will ensue. Whenever the people of the 
North and South have once appealed to the God of battles, 



840 sterling's southern orator. 

for which I look with most fearful apprehension, a civil 
war will follow that will end only in the destruction of all 
the great interests of all sections of the country. Whenever 
that event comes, I know my duty ; and whether I have 
the nerve to be there myself or not, I know that such will 
be my duty, and that it will also be my duty to devote to 
the service my means, myself, and my children. Whenever 
that struggle comes, you will find, North and South, that 
the men who have sought most to preserve the Union, who 
have been the last to give it up, will be the first men to be 
found in the rank and file on both sides of the bloody contest, 
their means most liberally and freely be devoted to help- 
ing and maintaining the great, terrific, and bloody struggle, 
and they will enter it on either side for victory or death ; 
and if they fail in their efforts for the first, they will be 
found with their back to the field, and their feet to the foe. 
I want gentlemen North and South to mark my words : 
when these things come, when this bloody strife ensues, as 
it certainly will unless this spirit of disunion can be checked ; 
when, mark you, this country shall be laid waste ; when all 
our channels and communications of trade shall be broken up ; 
when the shipping in our ports shall be destroyed ; when 
our institutions of learning and religion shall wither away 
or be torn down ; when your cities shall be given up for 
plunder and for slaughter ; when youx* sons and my sons, 
your neighbors and my neighbors, shall be carried from this 
bloody field of strife ; and our mothers, our sisters, our wives, 
and our daughters shall assemble around us, and, with weep- 
ing eyes and aching hearts, say, " Could not you have done 
something, could not you have said something, that would 
have averted this dreadful calamity ?" I want to feel in my 
conscience and in my soul that I have done my duty. I want 
you, fejjow-men of the North, to be able to say that, upon 
a mere abstraction, that upon a question of no practical im- 
portance, you have not held out and refused to yield for the 
sake of giving peace to the country. I ask you, again, if you 
cannot give up this mere abstraction ? For, with all due 
respect, I can never envy the feelings of the man, North or 
South, who, when that day of butchery and destruction 
shall come, will feel in his heart that he stood out on a mere 
point of etiquette ; that if he had yielded a matter of no 
practical importance to him, or his constituents, all trouble 
could have been avoided. I ask gentlemen, North and 



sterling's southern orator. 341 

South, if they will not unite in settling these abstract ques- 
tions, and give peace to the country ? 



CCLXVII. 
GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR.— Henry W. Miller. 

It has been beautifully and truly said, 4C that no lasting 
renown, a renown that alone deserves the aspirations of a 
rational, immortal being, can ever be built upon any founda- 
tions, save those which are laid in an honest heart and a 
firm purpose, both conspiring to work out the good of man- 
kind." Such renown will be as imperishable as it is pure. 
Such we can, with confidence and pride declare, will be the 
renown of Zachary Taylor ! 

During that solemn but sublime scene which was exhibited 
a few days since, in the great council chamber of the na- 
tion, when accursed influences and prejudices of party were 
expelled, at least for a moment, to give place to the purer 
and holier emotions, his distinguished and patriotic rival in 
the last contest for the Presidency said of him : " The in- 
tegrity of his motives ivas neither assailed nor assailable. 
He passed through life, and a long and active one, neither 
meriting nor meeting reproach /" A sentiment betokening 
in him who uttered it a moral beauty of character resem- 
bling that whose virtues he so eloquently delineated, and 
W^hose loss he so feelingly deplored ! 

And how characteristic were the dying words of the 
hero ! "I am ready for the summons. I have tried to do 
my duty to my country !" The resignation of the Christian, 
the anxiety of the patriot ! Yes, illustrious man ! That 
thou didst thy duty faithfully and fearlessly whilst here, 
there went before thee to the land of spirits a score of wit- 
nesses. Thy brave companions who fell at Palo Alto — at 
Resaca — at Monterey — at Buena Vista — will be thy wit- 
nesses. But they have not all left us. There linger still 
upon this scene of action a cloud of witnesses. The whole 
country is full of proof! Every heart that throbs is a wit- 
ness! 

" But chiefly to the soldier's breast 
A thought of thee will kindling coine," 



342 sterling's -southern- orator. 

and many a gallant heart that stood by thy side in the storm 
of battle, and saw thy bright eye flash with confidence and 
courage, will guard thy fame, and bear testimony that all 
the ends thou aim'dst at were thy country's ! 

My fellow-citizens : His career is ended — his task has been 
accomplished — his fame is secure ! He has taken his allotted 
place by the side of Washington, of Jackson, of Harrison, 
and other great names, that have gone before him. Our 
task is hardly begun — our duty is not half completed. We 
have a country to serve. "We have the invaluable privileges 
which those distinguished patriots left us, to preserve, to 

STRENGTHEN, TO PERPETUATE. 

And what does this sad, this awful bereavement teach us ? 
What solemn admonition does it give ? That we are in 
the presence of Jehovah ! That He, and He alone, is the 
Ruler of this great people ; that He, and He alone, holds, as 
in the hollow of His hand, the destinies of this Union ; that 
as He has snatched away, in the twinkling of an eye, the 
head of this proud nation, so too is He able to dash that na- 
tion itself, with all its boasted power, to pieces, and scatter 
its glories to the winds ! 

And shall we neglect, as a nation, to heed the warning ? 
Shall we suffer the mad schemes of passion and of party to 
drive us onward to ruin and disgrace ? Will not the fiery 
spirit of Fanaticism — from whatsoever quarter it may 
come — stay its sacrilegious hand in the presence of this 
demonstration of the King of kings ? Whilst He is writ- 
ing His sentence across the heavens, and proclaiming to the 
nations of the earth that the mighty as well as the humble 
are His — His to make and His to destroy— will the demons 
of Discord and Disunion lift their hideous and accursed 
fronts, in the very heart of this political Eden which has 
been planted for man ? If they do, then let them, like their 
kindred spirits of old, who preferred to rule in hell than 
serve in heaven, be <c hurled headlong'** 

" Down 
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
In adamantine chains and penal fires 1" 



sterling's southern orator. 343 

cclxviii. 

THE DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN.— George E. Badger. 

If public taste, much, more public morals, require for their 
reformation the exertions of the enlightened and virtuous, the 
delusions that have gone abroad must be met and dissipat- 
ed ; the press must be corrected ; it must be transferred to 
the direction of able and upright men ; and the people 
(though well meaning, yet easily misled) must be guarded 
against those artifices by which it is sought to array them 
against their own peace and happiness, and to involve them 
in the stupendous guilt and folly of prostrating the last 
structure which can be raised by man for the preservation 
of equal rights by republican institutions. But to do this, 
you must yourselves be enlightened ; you must be no no- 
vices ; your reasoning powers must be perfected in strength 
and dexterity, by constant and healthful exercise ; your minds 
must be stored with every variety of knowledge, to instruct 
or to please. And thus prepared, you must bear in mind 
your high duties, and the large destinies which may be in- 
fluenced by your exertions : you must be the true friends of 
the people, teaching them to see and despise the efforts of 
those who would mislead them : you must be prepared, 
should circumstances require, to strip the mask of patriot- 
ism from ambition, and show his horrid features to the de- 
testation of mankind ; and to teach, both by your example 
and your precept, a voluntary, steady, and universal sub- 
mission to the laws. It is certain that the talent of a 
country, if generally united in one purpose, will bend public 
opinion to it, be it good or evil ; that through the press 
talent must operate on public opinion ; and that, therefore, 
society has a deep interest in the maintenance of a body of 
intelligent and honest writers. They stand, in truth, as 
sentinels on the walls of liberty, and give an alarm at the 
approach of danger, and only as it approaches. . . 

The press is the most important means of influencing 
opinion in a country where opinion is irresistible. Why, then, 
should this mighty power be allowed, without a struggle, 
to fall into hands generally inadequate in ability or disquali- 
fied by corruption? Let these things have their due weight, 
and the next generation may see a mighty change acconi- 



344 sterling's southern orator. 

plished. When genius, by its fascination, misleads even good 
sense and sound morals into disorganization, the danger be- 
comes urgent, and demands the more vigorous interference 
for public preservation. You must feel yourselves, by your 
position and political privileges, called always to battle for 
sound doctrine. 



/ CCLXIX. 

ENERGY. — Alexander H. Stephens. 

I have one other point only to present — that is, energy 
in execution. And though last in order, it is far from being 
least in importance. By this I mean application, attention, 
activity, perseverance, and untiring industry in that busi- 
ness or pursuit, whatever it may be, which is undertaken. 
Nothing great or good can ever be accomplished without 
labor and toil. Motion is the law of living nature. Inac- 
tion is the symbol of death, if it is not death itself. The 
hugest engines, with strength and capacity sufficient to 
drive the mightiest ships " across the stormy deep," are 
utterly useless without a moving power. Energy is the 
steam power, the motive principle of intellectual capacity. 
It is the propelling force ; and, as in physics, momentum is 
resolvable into quantity of matter and velocity, so in meta- 
physics, the extent of human accomplishment may be resolv- 
able in the degree of intellectual endowment and the energy 
with which it is directed. A small body driven by a great 
force will produce a result equal to, or even greater, than 
that of a much larger body moved by a considerably less 
force. So it is with minds. Hence we often see men 
of comparatively small capacity, by greater energy alone, 
leave, and justly leave, their superiors in natural gifts far 
behind them in the race for honors, distinction, and prefer- 
ment. 

This is the real vis vitce, or that principle in human 
nature which gives power and vim to the efforts of genius 
toward whatever objects such efforts may be directed. It 
is this which imparts that quality which we designate by 
the very expressive term u force of character ;" that which 
meets, defies, and bears down all opposition. This is, per- 



sterling's southern orator. 345 

haps, the most striking characteristic of those great minds 
and intellects which never fail to impress their names, their 
views, ideas, and opinions indelibly upon the history of the 
times in which they live. Men of this class are those 
pioneers of thought, who, sometimes even " in advance of 
the age," are known and marked in history as originators 
and discoverers, or those who overturn old orders and sys- 
tems of things and build up new ones. To this class belong 
Columbus, Luther, Cromwell, Watt, Fulton, Franklin, and 
Washington. It was to the same class that General Jack- 
son belonged. He not only had a clear conception of his 
purpose, but a will and energy to execute it. And it is in 
the same class, or amongst the first order of men, that 
Henry Clay will be assigned a place ; that great man to 
whom we have made such frequent allusion during these 
exercises, and whose recent loss the nation still mourns. 
Mr. Clay's success, and those civic achievements which will 
render his name as lasting as the history of his country, 
were the result of nothing so much as that element of 
character which I have denominated energy. Thrown 
upon life at an early age, without any means or resources 
save his natural powers and abilities, and without the ad- 
vantages of any thing above a common school education, 
he had nothing to rely on but himself, and nothing upon 
w T hich to place a hope but his own exertions. But, fired 
with a high and noble ambition, he resolved, young as he 
was, and cheerless as were his prospects, to meet and sur- 
mount every embarrassment and obstacle by which he was 
surrounded. His aims and objects were high and worthy 
the greatest efibrts ; they were not to secure the laurels won 
on the battle-field, but those wreaths which adorn the brow 
of the wise, the firm, the sagacious, and far-seeing statesman. 
The honor and glory of his life was — 

" The applause of list'ning senates to command, 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read his history in a nation's eyes." 

In his life and character you have a most striking example 
of what energy and indomitable perseverance can do, even 
when opposed by the most adverse circumstances. 



346 sterling's southern orator. 

COLXX. 
DEFENCE OF JEFFERSON.— Henry Clay. 

Next to the notice which the opposition has found itself 
called upon to bestow upon the French Emperor, a distin- 
guished citizen of Virginia, formerly President of the United 
States, has never for a moment failed to receive their kind- 
est and most respectful attention. An honorable gentleman 
from Massachusetts, of whom, I am sorry to say, it becomes 
necessary for me, in the course of my remarks, to take some 
notice, has alluded to him in a remarkable manner. Neither 
his retirement from public office, his eminent services, nor 
his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse 
assaults of party malevolence. 

No, sir. In 1801 he snatched from the rude hand of 
usurpation the violated constitution of his country, and that 
is his crime. He preserved that instrument, in form, and 
substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations 
to come, and for this he can never be forgiven. 

How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against 
such a man ! He is not more elevated by his lofty resi- 
dence upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than 
he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind and consciousness of 
a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter 
feelings of the day. No ; his own beloved Monticello is 
not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides 
than is this illustrious man by the howlings of the whole 
British pack let loose from the Essex kennel. When the 
gentleman to whom I am compelled to allude shall have 
mingled his dust with that of his abused ancestors ; when 
he shall have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at 
all, shall live only in the treasonable annals of a certain 
junto — the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, 
his memory honored and cherished as the second founder 
of the liberties of the people, and the period of his admi- 
nistration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and 
brightest epochs of American history. 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 347 

CCLXXI. 

WAR WITH FRANCE.— John J. Crittenden. 

I agree with the honorable senator that France owes us 
twenty-five millions of francs, and that she assigns an in- 
sufficient reason for withholding payment. But this is the 
whole head and front of her offending. We have no other 
complaint against her. Would it be expedient and proper 
for us to make war for such a cause ? There is no other 
cause of complaint on our part. France has in no way of- 
fended against us on this occasion, except only by her fail- 
ure to pay the money in question. Shall we go to war to 
enforce its payment ? 

It is needless to discuss the question. Thank God, the 
danger of this war has passed by, and we have, as I believe, 
an almost certain assurance of reconciliation and peace 
with France. Such an issue of this controversy cannot be 
regarded othewise than as a matter of public congratulation. 
If war had been its result, I should have contributed all 
that was in my humble power to render my country success- 
ful in that war. War of itself would have been a sufficient 
reason for me to take my country's side, without reference 
to its cause. But, sir, I must confess that I should have 
been most loth to witness any such war as that with which 
we have been threatened. 

A war with whom, and for what ? A war with France, 
our first, our ancient ally, whose blood flowed for us, and 
with our own, in the great struggle that gave us our free- 
dom and made us a nation. A war for money ! a petty, 
paltry sum of money ! I know of no instance, certainly 
none among the civilized nations of modern times, of a war 
waged for such an object; and if it be among the legitimate 
causes of war, it is surely the most inglorious of them all. 
It can afford but little of that generous inspiration which in 
a noble cause gives to war its magnanimity and its glory. 
War for money must ever be an ignoble strife. On its bar- 
ren fields the laurel cannot flourish. In the sordid contest 
but little honor can be won, and Victory herself is almost 
despoiled of her triumph. 

If we should attempt by war to compel France to pay the 
money in question, none who know the two nations can doubt 



34:8 sterling's southern orator. 

but the contest would be fierce, bloody, and obstinate. Sup- 
pose, however, that our success is such as finally to enable 
us to dictate terms to France, and to oblige her to pay the 
money. Imagine, Mr. President, that the little purse, the 
prize of war and carnage, is at last obtained. There it is, 
sir, stained with the blood of Americans, and of Frenchmen, 
their ancient friends. Could you, sir, behold or pocket that 
blood-stained purse without some emotions of pain and 
remorse ? 



CCX.XXXI. 
RESTORATION OF THE UNION.— J. L. Dawson. 

A cordial reunion of the States will do more to settle 
our foreign complications than " an army with banners." It 
would stimulate a revival of our industrial pursuits, and 
divert into new channels a portion of our paper issues. It 
would encourage a speedy and active cultivation of the lands 
of the South, add largely to the public revenue, and increase 
the basis of security for the payment of the public debt. 
Who can hesitate to cooperate for such a purpose — to re- 
store the Union, to reunite a people, to reestablish an em- 
pire of free commonwealths, and make it irresistible and 
imperishable ? And yet the caucus of the dominant party 
originated the joint resolution and the committee of fifteen, 
to which is committed without debate whatever relates im- 
mediately or remotely to the restoration of the Union. A 
policy thus struck out in advance of the message has fore- 
stalled the action of Congress, and virtually notified the 
President that the "information of the state of the Union," 
which the Constitution requires him to give, is immaterial 
and disregarded. It presumed the States in which insurrec- 
tion lately prevailed to be no States, and, as a consequence, 
that all his acts looking to their restoration were simple 
usurpations. 

In the rise and progress of this war we have seen a fright- 
ful display of the wild and reckless passions of our nature, 
manifesting itself in proscription, confiscation, and an utter 
disregard of the rights of person and property, of freedom of 
speech and publication, and of trial by jury. If we look 



sterling's southern orator. 349 

back to the instructive records of that commonwealth which 
was the greatest which preceded our own, we find that, 
when once a faction which dominated resorted to proscrip- 
tion and the gratification of malignant passion, this was 
the natural excuse for the opposite faction, on succeeding 
to power, of retaliating the same abuses. Sylla was the 
leader in this sanguinary policy. Then it was freely resort- 
ed to by Marius and by Cinna. Even Cicero, with all his high- 
toned principles, descended to this abuse in the punishment, 
without law, of the Catilinian conspirators. A reaction was 
the natural consequence. The infliction of punishment con- 
trary to law excited a sympathy with the vicious, and Cicero 
himself was soon a sufferer by the same code. The event 
proved the wisdom of Julius Caesar, w r ho in the Senate 
counselled moderation as at all times the true policy. It 
does not detract from the value of Caesar's counsel that he 
was himself assassinated in turn — for corruption had be- 
come too general and deep-seated to admit of any but a 
forcible remedy — and that through such a horrible highway 
of blood the republic became merged in the empire. May 
we not ask, do these extra-constitutional and unlawful acts 
upon the part of our rulers mark the steps of a like progress 
on our part toward the repose of absolutism ? 

Would it not be far better, in this condition of things, to 
repeal this sweeping and revolutionary confiscation law? 
For, what is the end and object of that act? If it is a 
punishment, then I am fortified by the opinion of Montes- 
quieu that all such punishments are unwise. The follwoing 
is the language which he uses in his " Spirit of Laws :" 

" As soon as a republic has compassed the destruction of 
those who Avanted to subvert it, there should be an end of 
examples, punishments, and even of rewards." 

We must remember that in the struggle through which 
we have passed a million of our people have been slain, and 
among others the Washingtons, Marshalls, and Monroes ; 
and that Virginia has been desolated and dismembered. It 
was this same Virginia that, in the struggle of 1776, march- 
ed to the relief of Massachusetts. In that eventful conflict 
she was to Massachusetts as the shield of Achilles to the 
Greeks. She furnished the author of the Declaration and the 
leader of the continental army which carried the Revolu- 
tion to success, and afterward the statesmen who laid the 
foundation of the government. 



350 sterling's southern orator. 

The disorganization of society induced by the late strug- 
gle, and the demoralizing spirit of plunder which, is abroad 
in the land, may for a time retard their adoption, but their 
full and general recognition cannot long be delayed. In the 
language of Henry Clay, " Truth is inevitable and public 
justice certain." 

In restoring to order the scattered parts of a government 
and people returning to peace after a terrible civil war, the 
principles of justice must be preserved. With a just sense 
of right, and with comprehensive view, we must not only 
forget the past, but we must, by an equal distribution of 
the benefits as well as the burdens of government, make it 
the interest of all sections to uphold and defend it. Such 
interest is the great regulating principle, the true bond of 
Union ; the cohesive power that holds governments together, 
and makes a nation truly great and prosperous. For a time 
the Southern States may be denied the privileges of a re- 
union, and of a representation on this floor ; the writ of 
habeas corpus may be suspended ; arbitrary arrests may be 
renewed ; military commissions continued ; and the cry of 
an unbridled fanaticism heard over the voice of struggling 
justice ; but so certainly as the waters find their level, or the 
magnet points to the pole, will that spirit of liberty and 
independence which the Almighty blew into our nostrils 
with the breath of life conduct our principles to final tri- 
umph. 



CCIiXXIII. 

THE SOUTH-AMERICAN REPUBLICS.— D. Webster. 

Sir, I do not wish to overrate — I do not overrate — the 
progress of these new States in the great work of establish- 
ing a well-secured popular liberty. I know that to be a 
great attainment, and I know they are but pupils in the school. 
But, thank God, they are in the school. They are called to 
meet difficulties such as neither we nor our fathers en- 
countered. For these we ought to make large allow- 
ances. What have we ever known like the colonial vas- 
salage of these States ? When did we or our ancestors 
feel, like them, the weight of a political despotism that 



sterling's southern orator. 351 

presses men to the earth, or of that religious intolerance 
which would shut up heaven to all but the bigoted ? Sir, 
we sprang from another stock. We belong to another race. 
We have known nothing — we have felt nothing — of the 
political despotism of Spain, nor of the heat of her fires of 
intolerance. No rational man expects that the South can 
run the same rapid career as the North ; or that an insur- 
gent province of Spain is in the same condition as the Eng- 
lish colonies when they first asserted their independence. 
There is, doubtless, much more to be done in the first than 
in the last case. But on that account the honor of the 
attempt is not less ; and if all the difficulties shall be in 
time surmounted, it will be greater. The work may be 
more arduous ; it is not less noble, because there may be 
more of ignorance to enlighten — more of bigotry to subdue 
— more of prejudice to eradicate. If it be a weakness to 
feel a strong interest in the success of these great revolu- 
tions, I confess myself guilty of that weakness. If it be 
w r eak to feel that I am an American, to think that recent 
events have not only opened new modes of intercourse, but 
have created also new grounds of regard and sympathy 
between ourselves and our neighbors ; if it be weak to feel 
that the South, in her present state, is somewhat more em- 
phatically a part of America, than when she lay, obscure, 
oppressed and unknown, under the grinding bondage of a 
foreign power; if it be weak to rejoice, when, even in any 
corner of the earth, human beings are able to get up from 
beneath oppression, to erect themselves, and to enjoy the 
proper happiness of their intelligent nature; — if this be 
weak, it is a weakness from which I claim no exemption. 

A day of solemn retribution now visits the once proud 
monarchy of Spain. The prediction is fulfilled. The spirit 
of Montezuma and of the Incas might now well say, 

"Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia ? Do we see 
The robber and the murderer weak as we ? 
Thou ! that hast wasted earth, and dared despise 
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies — 
Thy pomp is in the grave ; thy glory laid 
Low in the pit thine avarice has made." 

Mr. Chairman, I will detain you only with one more reflec- 
tion on this subject. We cannot be so blind — we cannot 
so shut up our senses, and smother our faculties, as not to 



352 sterling's southern orator. 

see that, in the progress and the establishment of South- 
American liberty, our own example has been among the 
most stimulating causes. That great light — a light which can 
never be hid — the light of our own glorious revolution, has 
shone on the path of the South- American patriots from 
the beginning of their course. In their emergencies, they 
have looked to our experience ; in their political institu- 
tions, they have followed our models ; in their deliberations, 
they have invoked the presiding spirit of our own liberty. 
Th£y have looked steadily, in every adversity, to the great 
Northern light. In the hour of bloody conflict, they have 
remembered the fields which have been consecrated by the 
blood of our own fathers ; and when they have fallen, they 
have wished only to be remembered with them, as men who 
had acted their parts bravely, for the cause of liberty in 
the Western world. 

Sir, I have done. If it be weakness to feel the sympathy 
of one's nature excited for such men, in such a cause, I am 
guilty of that weakness. If it be prudence to meet their 
proffered civility, not with reciprocal kindness, but with 
coldness or with insult, I choose still to follow where natu- 
ral impulse leads, and to give up that false and mistaken 
prudence for the voluntary sentiments of the heart. 



CCLXXIV. 

CONFISCATION OF GOVERNMENT DEBTS.— John Randolph. 

For my part I will never go to war but in self-defence. 
I have no desire for conquest, no ambition to possess 
Nova Scotia. I hold the liberties of this people at a higher 
rate. Much more am I indisposed to war, when, among the 
first means of carrying it on, I see gentlemen propose the 
confiscation of debts due by government to individuals. 
Does a bona-fide creditor know who holds his paper ? Dare 
any honest man ask himself the question ? 5 Tis hard to say 
whether such principles are more detestably dishonest than 
they are weak and foolish. What, sir, will you go about 
with proposals for opening a loan in one hand, and a sponge 
for the national debt in the other ? If, on a late occasion, 



sterling's southern orator. 353 

you could not borrow at a less rate of interest than eight 
per cent, when the government avowed that they would 
pay to the last shilling of the public ability, at what price 
do you expect to raise money with the avowal of these 
nefarious opinions ? God help you ! if these are your ways 
and means for carrying on war — if your finances are in the 
hands of such a chancellor of the exchequer. Because a 
man can take an observation and keep a log-book and a 
reckoning, can navigate a cockboat to the West-Indies or 
the Ea^fc, shall he aspire to navigate the great vessel of 
state? to stand at the helm of public councils? "What are 
you going to war for? For the carrying trade ? Already 
you possess seven eighths of it. What is the object in dis- 
pute ? The fair, honest trade that exchanges the products 
of our soil for foreign articles for home consumption ? Not 
at all. You are called upon to sacrifice this necessary 
branch of your navigation, and the great agricultural inter- 
est, whose handmaid it is — to jeopard your best interest 
for a circuitous commerce, for the fraudulent protection of 
belligerent property under your neutral flag. Will you be 
goaded by the dreaming calculation of insatiate avarice to 
stake your all for the protection of this trade? I do not 
speak of the probable effects of war on the price of our 
produce. Severely as we must feel, we may scuffle through 
it. I speak of its reaction upon the Constitution. You may 
go to war for this excrescence of the carrying trade — and 

make peace at the expense of the Constitution 

This trade, sir, may be important to Britons, to nations 
who have exhausted every resource of industry at home, 
bowed down by taxation and wretchedness. Let them, in 
God's name, if they please, follow the fur trade. They 
may, for* me, catch every beaver in North-America. Yes, 
sir, our people have a better occupation — a safe, profitable, 
honorable employment. Whilst they should be engaged in 
distant regions hunting the beaver, they dread but those 
whose natural prey they are, should begin to hunt them, 
should pillage their property, and assassinate their consti- 
tution. Give up these wild schemes — pay off your debt, 
and do not prate about its confiscation. Do not, I beseech 
you, expose at once your knavery and your folly. You 
have more lands than you know what to do with ; you have 
lately paid fifteen millions for yet more. Go and work 
them — and cease to alarm the people with the cry of Wolf ! 



354 sterling's southern orator. 

until they become deaf to your voice, or at least laugh at 
you. 



CCLXXV. 

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.— Edward Everett. 

No, fellow-citizens, we dismiss not Adams and Jefferson 
to the chambers of forgetfulness and death. "What we 
admired, and prized, and venerated in them can never die, 
nor, dying, be forgotten. I had almost said that they are 
now beginning to live— to live that life of unimpaired in- 
fluence, of unclouded fame, of unmingled happiness, for 
which their talents and services were destined. They were 
of the select few, the least 'portion of. whose 'life dwells in 
their physical existence; whose hearts have watched while 
their senses slept ; whose souls have grown up into a higher 
being ; whose pleasure is to be useful ; whose wealth is an 
unblemished reputation; who respire the breath of honor- 
able fame ; who have deliberately and consciously put 
what is called life to hazard, that they may live in the 
hearts of those who come after. Such men do not, cannot 
die. 

To be cold, and motionless, and breathless ; to feel not 
and speak not : this is not the end of existence to the men 
who have breathed their spirits into the institutions of 
their country, who have stamped their characters on the 
pillars of the age, who have poured their heart's blood into 
the channels of the public prosperity. Tell me, ye who 
tread the sods of yon sacred height, is Warren dead ? Can 
you not still see him, not pale and prostrate, the blood of 
his gallant heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but 
moving resplendent over the field of honor, with the rose 
of heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of liberty in his eye ? 
• Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the 
shades of Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up in that 
cold and narrow house ? That which made these men, and 
men like these, cannot die. The hand that traced the char- 
ter of independence is, indeed, motionless, the eloquent lips 
that sustained it are hushed ; but the lofty spirits that con- 
ceived, resolved, matured, maintained it, and which alone, 
to such men, w make it life to live," these cannot expire : 



sterling's southern orator. 355 

" These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away : 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 
But that which warmed it once can never die." 



CCLXXVI. 
THE PEOPLE ARE JEALOUS OF THEIR LIBERTIES. 
E. Livingston. 

Compared to the breach of our Constitution and the es- 
tablishment of arbitrary power, every other topic is trifling ; 
arguments of convenience sink into nothing ; the preserva- 
tion of wealth, the increase of commerce, however weighty 
on other occasions, here lose their importance when the 
fundamental principles of freedom are in danger. I am 
tempted to borrow the impressive language of a foreign 
speaker, and exclaim : " Perish our commerce, let our Con- 
stitution live ;" perish our riches, let our freedom live. This, 
sir, would be the sentiment of every American were the 
alternative between submission and wealth ; but here, sir, 
it is proposed to destroy our wealth in order to ruin our 
commerce ; not in order to preserve our Constitution, but to 
break it — not to secure our freedom, but to abandon it. 

I have now done, sir ; but, before I sit down, let me en- 
treat gentlemen seriously to reflect, before they pronounce 
the decisive vote that gives the first open stab to the prin- 
ciples of our government. Our mistaken zeal, like the 
patriarch of old, has bound the victim ; it lies at the foot 
of the altar ; a sacrifice of the first-born offspring of free- 
dom is proposed by those who gave it birth. The hand is 
already raised to strike, and nothing, I fear, but the voice 
of Heaven can arrest the impious blow. 

Let not gentlemen flatter themselves that the fervor of 
the moment can make the people insensible to these ag- 
gressions. It is an honest, noble warmth, produced by an 
indignant sense of injury. It will never, I trust, be extinct, 
while there is a proper cause to excite it. But the people 
of America, sir, though watchful against foreign aggressions, 
are not careless of domestic encroachment; they are jeal- 



356 sterling's southern orator. 

ous, sir, of their liberties at home as of the power and pros- 
perity of their country abroad; they will awake to a sense 
of their danger. Do not let us flatter ourselves, then, that 
these measures will be unobserved or disregarded ; do not 
let us be told, sir, that we excite a fervor against foreign 
aggressions only to establish tyranny at home ; that, like 
the arch traitor, we cry " Hail Columbia !" at the moment 
we are betraying her to destruction; that we sing out 
" Happy land !" when we are plunging it in ruin and dis- 
grace ; and that we are absurd enough to call ourselves 
" free and enlightened," while we advocate principles that 
would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity, and es- 
tablish a code, compared to which the or'deal is wise, and 
the trial by battle is merciful and just. 



CCLXXVII. 
THE BONNIE BLUE FLAGL— Alexander L. White. 

The Bonnie Blue Flag no longer reflects the light of the 
morning sunbeam, nor kisses with its silken folds the genial 
breezes of our Southern clime. The hands that waved it 
along the fiery crests of a hundred battle-fields, and the 
hearts that, for the love they bore it, so often defied danger 
and death, no longer rally around it. Another banner 
waves in triumph over its closed and prostrate folds ; but 
proud memories and glorious recollections still cluster 
around it. Sir, I will refrain ; the South needs no eulogy ; 
the faithful record of her achievements will encircle her 
brow with glory, bright and enduring as the diadem of her 
cloudless skies. The scenes of Marathon and Platsea have 
been reenacted in the new world, without the beneficial re- 
sults that followed from those battle-fields of freedom ; and 
our country lies prostrate at the feet of the conqueror. 

But dearer is she in this the hour of her humiliation than 
she was in the day and hour of her pride and power. Each 
blood-stained field, each track of desolation, each new-made 
grave of her sons fallen in her defence, each mutilated form 
of the Confederate soldier, her widow's tears, her orphan's 
cries, are but so many chords that bind me to her, in the 



sterling's southern orator. 357 

midst of her desolation, and draw my affections close around 
my stricken country. When I raise my voice, or lift my 
hand against her, may the thunder rive me where I stand ; 
though I prove false in all else, I will be true to her ; 
though all others prove false, I will be faithful still ; and when, 
in obedience to that great command, " Dust to dust," my 
heart jeturneth to that earth from whence it came, it shall 
sink into her bosom, with the proud consciousness that it 
never knew one beat not in unison with the honor, the in- 
terests, the glory of my country. 



CCLXXVIII. 
THE SWORD.— T. S. Grimke. 



To the question, " What have the people ever gained but 
by revolution ?" I answer boldly, If by revolution be un- 
derstood the law *of the sword, Liberty has lost far more 
than she %\ev gained by it. The sword was the destroyer 
of the Lycian Confederacy and the Achaean League. The 
sword alternately enslaved and disenthralled Thebes and 
Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, and Corinth. The sword of Rome 
conquered every other free state, and finished the murder 
of Liberty in the ancient world, by destroying herself. 
What but the sword, in modern times, annihilated the re- 
publics of Italy, the Hanseatic towns, and the primitive 
independence of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland ? What but 
the sword partitioned Poland, assassinated the rising liberty 
of Spain, banished the Huguenots from France, and made 
Cromwell the master, not the servant, of the people ? And 
what but the sword of republican France destroyed the 
independence of half of Europe, deluged the continent with 
tears, devoured its millions upon millions, and closed the 
long catalogue of guilt by founding and defending to the 
last the most powerful, selfish, and insatiable of military 
despotisms ? 

The sword, indeed, delivered Greece from the Persian in- 
vaders, expelled the Tarquins from Rome, emancipated 
Switzerland and Holland, restored the Prince to his throne, 
and brought Charles to the scaffold. And the sword re- 



358 sterling's southern orator. 

deemed the pledge of the Congress of '16, when they plight- 
ed to each other " their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honor." And yet, what would the redemption of that pledge 
have availed toward the establishment of our present gov- 
ernment, if the spirit of American institutions had not been 
both the birthright and the birth-blessing of the Colonies ? 
The Indians, the French, the Spaniards, and even England 
herself, warred in vain against a people, born and Ifred in 
the household, at the domestic altar of Liberty herself. They 
had never been slaves, for they were born free. The sword 
was a herald to proclaim their freedom, but it neither creat- 
ed nor preserved it. A century and a half had already be- 
held them free in infancy, free in youth, free in early man- 
hood. Theirs was already the spirit of American institu- 
tions ; the spirit of Christian freedom, of a temperate, regu- 
lated freedom, of a rational civil obedience. For such a 
people the sword, the law of violence, did and could do 
nothing but sever the bonds which bound her colonial wards 
to their unnatural guardian. They redeemed their pledge, 
sword in hand ; but the sword left them as it found them, 
unchanged in character, freemen in thought and in deed, in- 
stinct with the immortal spirit of American institutions. 



CCLXXIX. 
EDUCATION.— C. Phillips. 



Of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence to 
allow us to cultivate, there is not one which breathes a 
purer fragrance or bears a heavenlier aspect than educa- 
tion. It is a companion which no misfortune can depress, 
no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave ; 
at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, 
in society an ornament ; it chastens vice, it guides virtue, 
it gives at once a grace and government to genius. With- 
out it, what is man ? A splendid slave ! A reasoning 
savage, vacillating between the dignity of an intelligence 
derived from God, and the degradation of passions par- 
ticipated with brutes ; and in the accident of their alternate 
ascendency, shuddering at the terrors of a hereafter, or em- 
bracing the horrid hope of annihilation. 



sterling's southern Orator. 359 

What is this wondrous world of his residence ? 
" A mighty maze, and all without a plan :" 

a dark, and desolate, and dreary cavern, without wealth, or 
ornament, or order. But light up within it the torch of 
knowledge, and how wondrous the transition ! The seasons 
change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth 
unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens 
display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated 
spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties 
regulated, and its mysteries resolved ! The phenomena 
which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the supersti- 
tions which enslave, vanish before education. 

Like the holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before 
the hesitating Constantine, if man follow but its precepts 
purely, it will not only lead him to the victories of this 
world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his 
admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of 
ancient grandeur, once studded with the stars of empire and 
the splendors of philosophy. What erected the little state 
of Athens into a powerful commonwealth, placing in her 
hand the sceptre of legislation, and wreathing round her 
brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fame? What 
extended Rome, the heart of banditti, into universal em- 
pire ? What animated Sparta with that high, unbending, 
adamantine courage, which conquered Nature herself, and 
has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public 
virtue, and a proverb of national independence ? What but 
those wise public institutions which strengthened their 
minds with early application, informed their infancy with 
the principles of actions, and sent them into the world too 
vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be 
shaken by its whirlwinds ? 



360 sterling's southern orator. 

CCLXXX. 

AGAINST ADOPTING THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

Patrick Henry. 

We have no detail of those great considerations which, 
in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should 
recur to a government of this kind. Here is a revolution as 
radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It 
is as radical, if, in this transition, our rights and privileges 
are endangered, and the sovereignty of the States relin- 
quished. And cannot we plainly see that this is actually 
the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty 
of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all preten- 
sions to human rights and privileges are rendered insecure, 
if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of by some, and 
inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of 
rights worthy of freemen ? Is it worthy of the manly 
fortitude that ought to characterize republicans ? It is said 
eight States have adopted this plan. I declare that, if 
twelve States and a half had adopted it, I would, with manly 
firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You 
are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor 
how you are to become a great and powerful people, but 
how your liberties can be secured ; for liberty ought to be 
the direct end of your government. Having premised 
these things, I shall, with the aid of my judgment and 
information, which, I confess, are not extensive, go into 
the discussion of this system more minutely. Is it neces- 
sary for your liberty that you should abandon those great 
rights by the adoption of this system? Is the relinquish- 
ment of the trial by jury, and the liberty of the press, 
necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of 
your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty ? 
Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings — give us that 
precious jewel, and you may take every thing else. But I 
am fearful I have lived long enough to become an old- 
fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invincible attachment to the 
dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened 
days, be deemed old-fashioned; if so, I am contented to be 
so. I say, the time has been when every pulse of my heart 



sterling's southern orator. 361 

beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, had a 
counterpart in the breast of every true American. But 
suspicions have gone forth — suspicions of my integrity. It 
has been publicly reported that my professions are not real. 
Twenty-three years ago was I supposed a traitor to my 
country : I was then said to be a bane of sedition, because 
I supported the rights of my country : I may be thought 
suspicious when I say our privileges and rights are in 
danger ; but, sir, suspicion is a virtue as long as its object 
is the preservation of the public good, and as long as it 
stays within proper bound ; should it fall on me, I am con- 
tented : conscious rectitude is a powerful consolation ; I 
trust there are many who think my professions for the 
public good are real. Let your suspicion look on both 
sides ; there are many on the other side who, possibly, may 
have been persuaded of the necessity of these measures 
which I conceive to be dangerous to your liberty. Guard 
with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every 

one who approaches that jewel 

Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those nations 
who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently 
suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have 
groaned under intolerable bondage ! Most of the human 
race are now in this deplorable condition. And those 
nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power, and 
splendor have also fallen a sacrifice and been the victims of 
their own folly. While they acquired these visionary bless- 
ings, they lost their freedom. 



CCLXXXI. 
THE SAME— Continued. 



The honorable gentleman then went on to the figure 
we make with foreign nations : the contemptible one we 
make with France and Holland, which, according to the 
substance of my notes, he attributes to the present feeble 
government. An opinion has gone forth, we find, that we 
are a contemptible people ; the time has been when we 
were thought otherwise. Under this same despised gov- 



862 sterling's southern orator. 

eminent, we commanded the respect of all Europe ; where- 
fore are we now reckoned otherwise? The American 
spirit has fled from hence ; it has gone to the regions where 
it has never been expected ; it has gone to the people of 
France, in search of a splendid government — a strong, 
energetic government. Shall we imitate the example of 
those nations who have gone from a simple to a splendid 
government? Are those nations more worthy of our imi- 
tation? What can make an adequate satisfaction to them 
for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a govern- 
ment — for the loss of their liberty? If we admit this 
consolidated government, it will be because we like a great 
and splendid one. Some way or other, we must be a great 
and mighty empire ; we must have an army, and a navy, and 
a number of things. When the American spirit was in its 
youth, the language of America was different ; liberty, sir, 
was then the primary object. We are descended from a 
people whose government was founded on liberty; our 
glorious forefathers, of Great Britain, made liberty the 
foundation of every thing. That country is to become a 
great, mighty, and splendid nation ; not because their gov- 
ernment is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is 
its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit of 
liberty from our British ancestors ; by that spirit we have 
triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the Ameri- 
can spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, 
is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty 
empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to 
become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of 
America, your government will not have sufficient energy 
to keep them together; such a government is incompatible 
with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, 
no r£al balances, in this government. What can avail your 
specious, imaginary balances; your rope-dancing, chain- 
rattling, ridiculous, ideal checks and contrivances ? But, 
sir, we are not feared by foreigners ; we do not make na- 
tions tremble. I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever 
direct its operations to the security of those objects. Consid- 
er your situation, sir ; go to the poor man, ask him what he 
does ; he will inform you that he enjoys the fruit of his 
labor under his own fig-tree, with his wife and children 
around him, in peace and security. Go to every other 
member of the society ; you will find the same tranquil ease 



i 



sterling's southern orator. 363 

and content— you will find no alarms or disturbances ! 
Why, then, tell us of dangers, to terrify us into an adoption 
of this new form of government ? And yet who knows 
the dangers that this new form of government may produce? 
They are out of sight of the common people; they cannot 
foresee latent consequences. I dread the operation of it on 
the middling and lower classes of people ; it is for them I 
fear the adoption of this system. 



CCLXXXII. 

EXPUNGING RESOLUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 
SENATE— 1837.— Henky Clay. 

But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste 
my breath in fruitless exertions? The decree has gone 
forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to be done — 
that foul deed which, like the blood-stained hands of the 
guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will never wash out. 
Proceed, then, with the noble work which lies before you, 
and, like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And 
when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and 
tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our 
common country. Tell them that you have extinguished 
one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burnt at the 
altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced 
one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defence 
of the Constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. ♦Tell 
them that, henceforward, no matter what daring or out- 
rageous act any President may perform, you have forever 
hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them 
that he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, 
snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command 
a military detachment to enter the halls of the capitol, over- 
awe Congress, trample down the Constitution, and raze 
every bulwark of freedom ; but that the Senate must stand 
mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing 
voice. That it must wait until a House of Representatives, 
humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it com- 



364 sterling's southern orator. 

posed of the partisans of the President, shall prefer arti- 
cles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have 
restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedience and 
non-resistance. And, if the people do not pour out their 
indignations and imprecations, I have yet to learn the 
character of American freemen. 



CCIiXXXIII. 

GOVERNMENT EXTRAVAGANCE.— J. J. Crittenden. 

The bill under consideration is intended to authorize the 
treasury department to issue ten millions of treasury notes, 
to be applied to the discharge of the expenses of govern- 
ment. Habits of extravagance, it seems, are hard to change. 
They constitute a disease ; ay, sir, a very dangerous one. 
That of the present administration came to a crisis about 
eight months ago, and it cost the patient ten millions 
of treasury notes to get round the corner. And now it is 
as bad as ever. Another crisis has come, and the doctors 
ask for ten millions more. The disease is desperate. 
Money or death. They say, if the bill is rejected, govern- 
ment must " stop." What must stop ? The laws ? The 
judicial tribunals? The legislative bodies? The in- 
stitutions of the country ? No, no, sir ; all these remain 
and go on. What stops, then ? Its own extravagance ; 
that must stop, and " there's the rub!" Besides, sir, I 
must really be permitted to say, that if to keep this admin- 
istration on its feet is to cost ten millions of extraordinary 
supply every six or eight months, why, Mr. President, the 
sooner its fate is recorded in the bills of mortality the bet- 
ter. 

Let me know how this money is to be applied. I never 
will vote a dollar on the mere cry of " exigency !" — " cri- 
sis !" I will be behind no man in meeting the real neces- 
sities of my country ; but I will not blindly or heedlessly 
vote away the money of the people, or involve them in 
debt. If the government wants money, let it borrow it. 
If extravagance or necessity shall bring a national debt 
upon u&, let it come openly, and not steal upon us in the 



sterling's southern orator. 365 

disguise of treasury notes. "Oh, but it is not debt!" say 
gentlemen; "it is only issuing a few notes to meet a crisis." 
Well, sir, whether it be a national debt I will not say. 
This I know ; it will be followed, whatever it is, with the 
serious and substantial consequence, that the people of the 
United States will have to pay it — every cent of it — and 
with interest. Sir, I desire to see this experimenting ad- 
ministration forced to make some experiments in economy. 
It is almost the only experiment to which it seems averse. 
Its cry is still for money, money, money ! But, for one, I 
say to it, "Take physic, Pomp !" Lay aside your extrava- 
gance. Too much money has been your bane ; and I do 
not feel myself required, by any duty, to grant you more 
at present. If I did, it would not be in the form proposed 
by the bill. 



CCLXXXIV. 

DEFALCATION AND RETRENCHMENT— 1838.— S. S. Prentiss. 

Sir, I have given you three or four cases of defalcations. 
Would time permit, I could give you a hundred. Like the 
fair Sultana of the oriental legends, I could go on for a 
thousand and one nights; and even as in these Eastern 
stories, so in the chronicles of the office-holders, the tale 
would ever be of heaps of gold, of massive ingots, uncounted 
riches. Why, sir, Aladdin's wonderful lamp was nothing to 
it. They seem to possess the identical cap of Fortunatus. 
Some wish for fifty thousand dollars, some for a hundred 
thousand, and some for a million — and, behold, it lies in 
glittering heaps before them. Not even 

" The gorgeous East, with richest hand, 
Showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold " 

in such lavish abundance as does this administration upon 
its followers. Pizarro held not forth more dazzling lures 
to his robber-band when he led them to the conquest of the 
" Children of the Sun." 

And now it is proposed to make up these losses through 
defaulters by retrenchment. And what do you suppose are 
to be the subjects of this new and sudden economy ? What 



366 sterling's southern orator. 

branches of the public service are to be lopped off on ac- 
count of the licentious rapacity of the office-holders ? I am 
too indignant to tell you. Look into the report of the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, and you will find out. Well, sir, what 
are they. Pensions, harbors, and lighthouses! Yes, sir; 
these are recommended as proper subjects for retrenchment. 
First of all, the scarred veterans of the revolution are to be 
deprived of a portion of the scanty pittance doled out to 
them by the cold charity of the country. How many of 
them will you have to send forth as beggars on the very 
soil which they wrenched from the hand of tyranny, to 
make up the amount of these splendid robberies ? How 
many harbors will it take — those improvements dedicated 
no less to humanity than to interest — those nests of com- 
merce to which the canvas-winged birds of the ocean flock 
for safety? How many lighthouses will it take? How 
many of those bright eyes of the ocean are to be put out ? 
How many of those faithful sentinels, who stand along our 
rocky coast, and, peering out into the darkness, give timely 
warning to the mariner where the lee shore threatens — how 
many of these, I ask, are to be discharged from their hu- 
mane service ? Why, the proposition is almost impious. I 
should as soon wish to put out the stars of heaven. Sir, my 
blood boils at the cold-blooded atrocity with which the ad- 
ministration proposes thus to sacrifice the very family jew- 
els of the country to pay for the consequences of its own 
profligacy. 



CCLXXXV. 

CLAY AND WEBSTER.— Hon. Mr. Taylor. 

Sir, it was my good fortune to have known, for many 
years, both these great patriots, and to have enjoyed their 
friendship ; and I think I but express the general sentiment 
of the intelligent people of this great country when I say 
that our country is, in a very large degree, indebted to them 
for its unexampled prosperity ; for its peace and domestic 
happiness ; and for its acknowledged power and high re- 
nown all over the world. In my judgment, the words of 
the national legislature, so beautifully and aptly embodying 



sterling's southern orator. 367 

the true character of the Father of his Country, were not 
more appropriately uttered then, in reference to him, than 
they might be employed now, so far as relates to the civil 
affairs and action of our government within the last forty 
years, to Henry Clay and Daniel Webster ; and it may be 
properly said of them, that within that time they have 
been, emphatically, " First in war, first in peace, and first 
in the hearts of their countrymen." But, sir, the great 
men of a country must die ; and if the great men of a coun- 
try are preeminently good men, their loss is the more 
severely felt. Nothing human is perfect; and I am far 
from believing, much less from asserting, that the eminent 
men of whom I have spoken were without defects of cha- 
racter. But I believe their virtues so far outweighed the 
imperfections of their nature, that to dwell upon such de- 
fects, on this occasion, would be as unprofitable and futile as 
to object to the light, and heat, and blessings of the glorious 
sun, guided by the omnipotent hand, because an occasional 
shadow or spot may be seen on his disk. These guardians 
of our country have passed away; but their works and 
their good examples are left for our guidance, and are part of 
the lasting and valued possessions of the nation. 



CCLXXXVI. 

THE UNION.— Matthew W. Ranson, Esq. 

Now let me ask what is it which gives you and me and 
all of us a patriotic participation in the world-wide renown 
of Prescott, the ever-charming page of Irving, the noble 
story of Bancroft, and the morning song of Longfellow ? 
What gives us a share in the fame of that philosophy which 
has tamed the flaming minister of the skies and made it the 
obedient messenger of human thought ? What is it that 
reflects on us the glory of that eloquence whose breath in- 
spired by philanthropy fanned the flame of liberty in two 
continents at once, as it was wafted across the ocean and 
echoed from the classic isles of Greece to the sunny shores 
of South- America ? What is it that sheds upon us the 
splendor of that science which has connected the hemi- 



368 sterling's southern orator. 

spheres by steam, brought the whole family of man into 
one neighborhood, made a new chart of the ocean, and 
with an electric pen records the motion of the planets ? 
What is it that imparts to us a property in the beauty of 
that art which glows on the canvas of Sully, bodies the 
majesty of greatness in the bronze of Mills, and will live 
forever in the breathing marble of Powers? What is it 
but the Union that blends all of these separate glories and 
blessings into one beautiful and consistent illumination — 
which spreads out like a canopy over the whole American 
name, and blazes all over the earth as brilliant and daz- 
zling as the aurora borealis, and steady and constant as the 
Milky Way in the heavens ? What is it but the Union 
which, by the peace and prosperity it has secured, has ena- 
bled us to build up our thousand printing-presses, our my- 
riad schools, our countless colleges, and our overflowing 
libraries ? What is it but the Union which has secured to 
the people of these States a common inheritance of freedom, 
a common enjoyment of renown, and a common opportu- 
nity of intelligence ? And as I, as a patriot, would not 
part with my legacy in the fame of Lexington, and Bunker 
Hill, and Princeton, and Yorktown, and Guilford, and Nia- 
gara, and Erie, and Buena Vista, and Mexico, at a less 
price than the precious blood which they cost ; so, as a scho- 
lar, I could not, without tears of sorrow and a heart broken 
with shame, behold the day when I could not hold up my 
head and declare all over the world that I was a country- 
man of Franklin and Fulton, and breathed with Webster 
and Calhoun and Clay the same air of liberty. 



CCLXXXVII. 

THE SOUTH.— S. Cartjthers. 

But while I thus honor and thus love the North, I also 
love the South, the abused, the calumniated South. I loved 
her in my childhood, I adore her in my manhood, and I will 
love her at my death. She, too, has her bright roll of 
great names, her proud and lofty spirit, her daring chivalry, 
her open generosity, her fervid patriotism. I call upon the 



sterling's southern orator. 369 

North to remember (in the language of their greatest ora- 
tor) that " she went hand in hand with you through the 
dark night of our Revolution ;" that her snouts of gladness 
and triumph mingled with yours at its glorious consum- 
mation. That in 1812, when it was your seamen who had 
been impressed, and your commerce that had been plun- 
dered, true to you, true to her own noble impulses, she 
paused not to inquire whether she had been stricken ; but 
she saw her Northern brother wronged and dishonored, and 
she plunged, with all her great soul, into the fight. She 
has been true to the Union, notwithstanding the chief bur- 
dens of government, through the operation of revenue laws, 
have fallen upon her. She has been true to the Union, not- 
withstanding the unjust restrictions under which you have 
bound her. She has clung to it with unwavering hand, 
while you poured your fiery torrent of insult and obloquy 
and defamation upon her. Why should not this North and 
this South dwell together in unity ? Why should they not 
meet in fraternal embrace upon the altars of the Constitution ; 
and as the blood of their heroes has mingled together upon 
the battle-plain in war and in death, let the love of their sur- 
vivors mingle together in peace and in life ? United, we 
achieved our independence; united, in 1812, we safely 
guarded the boon ; united, on the plains of Mexico, we 
threw a halo of imperishable glory on the altar of our arms. 
United, we have garnered together a treasure-house of 
memories more rich than any of which the world's history 
tells. United, we have left an enduring^ monument of fflorv 
at every step of our progress. Continue this Union, and 
we will achieve a point of national eminence and greatness 
beyond even the boldest imaginings of the most sanguine 
men of our time. 

Sir, this Union will continue. Politicians and agitators, 
North and South, may ripple the surface — may cause the 
wave and the billow to roll ; but beneath there sleeps a calm, 
quiet, deep ocean of love for the Union and devotion to the 
Constitution. Upon that love and that devotion I build 
my hopes, and I will not yield my faith. 



370 sterling's southern orator. 

cclxxxviii. 

VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO THE SENATE.— Henry Clay. 

In the course of a long and arduous public service, espe- 
cially during the last eleven years in which I have held a 
seat in the Senate, from the same ardor and enthusiasm of 
character, I have no doubt, in the heat of debate, and in 
an honest endeavor to maintain my opinions against adverse 
opinions alike honestly entertained, as to the best course to 
be adopted for the public welfare, I may have often inad- 
vertently and unintentionally, in moments of excited debate, 
made use of language that has been offensive, and suscep- 
tible of injurious interpretation toward my brother sen- 
ators. If there be any here who retain wounded feelings 
of injury or dissatisfaction produced on such occasions, I 
beg to assure them that I now offer the most ample apology 
for any departure on my part from the established rules of 
parliamentary decorum and courtesy. On the other hand, 
I assure senators, one and all, without exception and with- 
out reserve, that I retire from this chamber without carry- 
ing with me a single feeling of resentment or dissatisfac- 
tion to the Senate or any one of its members. 

I go from this place under the hope that we shall, mutu- 
ally, consign to perpetual oblivion whatever personal col- 
lisions may at any time unfortunately have occurred be- 
tween us ; and that our recollections shall dwell in future 
only on those conflicts of mind with mind, those intellec- 
tual struggles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, 
argument, and eloquence, honorable to the Senate and to 
the nation, in which each has sought and contended for 
what he deemed the best mode of accomplishing one com- 
mon object, the interest and the utmost happiness of our be- 
loved country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes it 
will be my pleasure and my pride to look back in my re- 
tirement with unmeasured satisfaction 

In retiring, as I am about to do, forever from the Sen- 
ate, suffer me to express my heartfelt wishes that all the 
great and patriotic objects of the wise framers of our Con- 
stitution may be fulfilled ; that the high destiny designed 
for it may be fully answered ; and that its deliberations, 
now and hereafter, may eventuate in securing the pros- 



sterling's southern orator. 371 

perity of our beloved country, in maintaining its rights 
and honor abroad, and upholding its interests at home. I 
retire, I know, at a period of infinite distress and embar- 
rassment. I wish I could take my leave of you under more 
favorable auspices ; but, without meaning at this time to 
say whether on any or on whom reproaches for the sad con- 
dition of the country should fall, I appeal to the Senate and 
to the world to bear testimony to my earnest and continued 
exertions to avert it, and to the truth that no blame can 
justly attach to me. 

May the most precious blessings of Heaven rest upon the 
whole Senate and each member of it, and may the labors of 
every one redound to the benefit of the nation and the ad- 
vancement of his own fame and renown. And when you 
retire to the bosom of your constituents, may you receive 
that most cheering and gratifying of all human rewards — 
their cordial greeting of " Well done, good and faithful 
servant !" 



CCIiXXXIX. 

EX-GOV. MOREHEAD AS A LAWYER.— Williah L. Scott. 

Though Gov. Morehead had abandoned the practice of 
the law many years before my appearance at the bar, yet 
it was my fortune, while quite a youth, attending out of 
childish curiosity upon the sittings of the Superior Court 
of Guilford, to see him and to hear him. Of what he said, 
I have not now even a dim recollection ; but the impression 
which he made upon my youthful mind by his power of 
thought, eloquence of utterance, and fascination of manner, 
time, like the stream its channel, hath only deepened. My 
mother had told me how charming are the angels of heaven, 
and my youthful imagination fancied he must be like them. 
To me he was the most captivating talker I had ever heard. 
Of all the things dearest to a child is his little pet animal, 
and he delights to associate with it the object next most 
admired. Such w r as the spell he threw over my heart, that 
so soon ns I returned home my pet's name was changed 
to Morehead. Nor did that spell ever break. From that 
time my admiration of this great man commenced, and to 



372 sterling's southern orator. 

his death it continued. He was in the golden prime of ma- 
tured manhood and at the noon of his professional fame. 
He had wrestled up to that eminence with such men as Mur- 
phey, Nash, Toomer, Yancey, Henderson, Wilson, Menden- 
hall, and Settle, who* passed to eternity before him ; and with 
Ruffin, Graham, Caldwell, Boyden, Gowell, Gilmer, Kerr, and 
Poindexter, who are yet ornaments of their profession and 
of their country. He was about twoscore and two years 
old ; the weight of years had not stooped his shoulders ; 
his hair was only slightly " besprent with rays and gleams 
of silver-light .;" his face was smooth-shaven ; a mild lustre 
usually lit his blue eyes, but in a moment of animation they 
sparkled like the brightest stars ; his forehead was not high, 
yet massive ; his nose slightly Roman ; his chin prominent ; 
his lips compressed ; not unfrequently, when in deep thought, 
he indulged in a whispering whistle ; and his dress was ele- 
gant, but never ostentatious. Such was he as I first saw 
him ; nor can that image ever pass from my memory. The 
life-true picture, which was then daguerreotyped in my 
plastic young heart, was taken from the whole appearance 
of the man in repose and in action. Thenceforward, it has 
been to me the subject of profound study ; but never have 
I seen, in the walks of life, nor has my imagination con- 
ceived, a man so all-gifted as he was. His 

" Mind was an essence, compounded with art 
From the finest and best of all other men's powers." 

As a lawyer he was preeminently great. That learned 
jurist ; Judge Caldwell, remarked to me shortly after his 
death was announced, that " Gov. Morehead knew the fun- 
damental principles of the law by intuition, and as an advo- 
cate he had no equal." The mouth of a wide and common 
tradition, too, says he spoke magnetically. He knew all 
the avenues to the understanding and the passions, and for 
home-thrusts, heart-thrusts, he was famed above any man of 
his times. u Of human feelings " he was, like the immortal 
Sheridan, " the unbounded lord." As was sung of this 
Irish orator, he 

" Ruled, like a wizard, the world of the heart, 
And could call up its sunshine, or "bring down its showers/' 

He enshrined the richest and most solid thoughts in the 



sterling's SOUTHERN ORATOR. 8^0 

most transparent and powerful language. His reasoning 
was rapid, cogent, vehement, overpowering. Hearing him 
at times suggested the ancient story of Vulcan forging and 
Jupiter hurling thunderbolts. Sometimes he examined a 
witness with the sweetness and witchery of one suing for the 
love of a beautiful damsel, and seldom did he fail to win so 
upon the witness as to make him a better friend of his client 
than of his adversary ; and at other times, and when this 
plan failed, which was infrequent, he would press the wit- 
ness with the impetuosity and terribleness of the driving 
storm. Scanning the man, he could, in a trice, tell whether 
he could be lured or driven, and he was governed, in the 
course of his examination, by this discovery. Before the 
court, his persuasive argument was almost invincible — be- 
fore the jury, his earnest, impassioned, fervid eloquence was 
omnipotent. He forgot himself, forgot display, thought 
only of his cause — his client — success. Though he was not 
always successful, a client seldom suffered in his hands — he 
could, in every thing, make " the worse appear the better 
reason." He tried an action of ejectment with matchless 
ability and skill ; but he was most distinguished as a crim- 
inal practitioner. He never had a client to pay the forfei- 
ture of his life upon the gallows, though he appeared in the 
trial of perhaps every capital felony on his judicial circuit 
for a number of years before he retired from the practice of 
the law. To say this is to pronounce the highest panegyric 
upon his ability, ingenuity, skill, and eloquence. Of few be- 
sides the wizard-lipped Clay and himself, even among the 
ablest and fullest practitioners, can thus much be truly said. 



ccxc. 

THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION— 1866.— A. J. Eogers. 

I would have been pleased to have seen more of those 
who represent the rank and file of the Republican party 
take part on this occasion, because I feel that the liberty ot* 
this country and its destinies are held in the hands of the con- 
servative portion of that party, aided by the President of the 
United States in conjunction with the great Union party of 



^/4 sterling's southern orator. 

this country, and we should rally around him until that broad 
flag shall gather to its sacred folds every star that ever repre- 
sented an independent State of this Union. And with a name 
honored throughout all the earth, and with all the elements 
of national power in population, wealth, mechanical and in- 
dustrial pursuits returned, the day will not be far distant 
when that broad and beautiful flag, the emblem of civiliza- 
tion, will not only wave over the dome of the Capitol of the 
United States, but in every valley and upon every hill from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
State of Maine. I believe it is the wish of the Republican, 
as it is of the Democratic party, that the Union shall be pre- 
served. I mean the Union that gave to the country peace, 
prosperity, happiness, greatness, grandeur, and glory such 
as has never belonged to any other nation since the founda- 
tion of the world. I believe that the Constitution of the 
United States is the Union, and when the Constitution is de- 
stroyed, the Union of this country will perish and go down 
with it. I mean, my friends, the Union that was made by 
the patriots and the statesmen of the time that tried men's 
souls; the Union as handed down to us by our fathers for 
the protection and defence of the liberties of the white men 
and the white women of this land. I mean the Union which 
secured for us so great and glorious an independence — the 
Union, under the Constitution, which has brought us pros- 
perity at home, and consideration and respect abroad, equal 
to any country among the nations of the earth. And I be- 
lieve that, unless the doctrines of Andrew Johnson with re- 
gard to the reconstruction policy shall be sustained, des- 
potism and tyranny in this country will march forth in un- 
disturbed tranquillity, and, when our eyes are opened, shack- 
les and chains shall convince the people of this country that 
their liberties are invaded. 

We all know that at the commencement of this rebellion 
the people of the South claimed that they had a right to go 
out of the Union. The people of the North said they had 
not that right, and two millions of men were raised for the 
purpose of proving that this Government, made by our fa- 
thers, was perpetual, and to proclaim to the world that no 
State had a right to withdraw itself from the Union. Has 
that money and blood been expended in vain ? The States 
are in the Union ; the Union is intact. I' did not participate 
in the election of the present incumbent of the Presidential 



sterling's southern orator. 375 

chair. I do not believe in the doctrines of the party that 
elected him. I believe in the doctrines of Jefferson, of Mad- 
ison, of Jackson, and of other patriots who have occupied 
the Presidential chair. The Federal Government is one of 
limited power ; and whenever the Federal Government pro- 
poses to interfere with the States, it is a way leading to des- 
potism and tyranny. I do not agree with some of the sen- 
timents expressed by the gentleman from Kentucky. I say 
here to-day there is no test-oath that ought to be applied to 
the representatives from the South. They are entitled to 
representation by authority of law ; and when they took the 
oath laid down in the Constitution of the United States, they 
did all that was required of them. I am here to denounce 
this wicked, this pestilent, this despotic oath as more wicked , 
and tyrannical than any authority ever exercised by Charles 
the First, by which he had his own head brought to the 
block. When the war came, I was on the side of the Union. 
I have a right to protest against any act of tyranny which 
cursed the last administration and which will tend to plunge 
the country into war again. I supported the illustrious 
Abraham Lincoln in every constitutional movement to put 
down the rebellion; but when one of the objects of the war 
was to strike the shackles off the slaves and rob the people 
of the South of millions of dollars of property, I protested 
against it. But, my friends, I am here to-day to support 
Andrew Johnson — not because he is Andrew Johnson, but 
because of his efforts to restore the Union. And it is to sus- 
tain the exercise of constitutional power that I 'sustain An- 
drew Johnson in the movement he is making to bring back 
the States that are supposed to have been out of the Union. 
And I am disposed to exercise toward the Southern people 
the most Christian and charitable feelings. I have not for- 
gotten yet that, had it not been for revolution, that bright 
flag would never have been planted upon this continent. 
As they had to succumb, let us meet them on the principles 
of charity, take them by the right hand of fellowship, and 
lead them back into the Union. Then, with peace restored, 
we can march in one solid phalanx to the halls of the Mon- 
tezumas, and eventually aid Ireland in achieving her liberty. 
I say to Republicans here in friendship, let us, in the name 
of Washington, of Jefferson, of Madison, and of every other 
patriot in this country, band ourselves as a band of brothers, 
and show to the world that the integrity of the Union has 
been preserved. 



376 sterling's southern orator. 

CCXCI. 

THE PRESIDENT AND THE CONSTITUTION — 1866. 
M. Strouse. 

"We are assembled to commemorate the anniversary of 
the birth of the Father of his Country, and it is meet and 
proper that we should assemble to do honor to the memory 
of one upon whose like we shall never look again. It has 
been customary to observe this day throughout our land; 
but if there ever was a day or a time when it was the im- 
perative duty of the American people to do homage to the 
occasion, that day and time is now. We are also here inci- 
dentally to express our approval of the course pursued by 
the President, Andrew Johnson. I am not here as a parti- 
san. I am not one of those who supported Andrew John- 
son at the last Presidential election; but I am an American 
citizen, and can rise against party, and can give credit to 
whom credit is due ; and I assert here to-day that Andrew 
Johnson only performed his simple duty when he vetoed the 
Freedmen's Bureau bill. It was his duty to do as he did do. 
He swore that he would support, protect, and defend the Con- 
stitution of the United States ; and how could he have pro- 
tected that Constitution had he not done as he did two days 
ago ? Tou come here to thank him because he has done his 
duty — because, when patriotism had become scarce, and 
when the Constitution was looked upon by a set of cut- 
throat Radicals as obsolete, you found a pure diamond 
among so much black dirt. It is proper that we should 
thank Almighty God for allowing such a man to be Presi- 
dent. When he does right, he must be sustained. Mr. 
Johnson may do some acts which I will oppose, but I be- 
lieve that in thought and practice he is a true Democrat. 
When I say that, I use the word in its most significant and 
enlarged sense, for our institutions are founded upon the De- 
mocracy of the people. The war we battle against is the 
war upon the Constitution. The war for the Union, we are 
told, is over. At least we are told so officially ; but the mis- 
erable politicians., the Judases who would sell their Saviour 
for thirty pieces of silver, (and they do it for less, for they 
take in payment miserable shinplasters,) tell us that the war 
is not over ; and their small followers, the Esaus who would 



sterling's southern orator. 377 

sell their birthright for less than he sold his, reiterate the as- 
sertion. It is against such that Ave war; but we want no 
more rebellion; no more war or alienation between the 
North and the South, and all their rights must be granted 
to the latter. We should exercise charity toward the South, 
but there is no balm for them in that Gilead, [pointing to- 
ward the Capitol.] But all will be well if you will support 
the President, who will do right in spite of the miserable 
political tricksters. Write to your friends at home to stand 
by the President, who stands by the Constitution, and let us 
say to the freemen of the South that we will have one God, 
one country, one Union, and one Constitution. Will you 
hold the South as Austria holds Hungary, or as Russia holds 
Poland? No ! a white man can say nothing else but No 
upon this subject. Then let your words and your acts prove 
that you are the friends of Andrew Johnson. Write to your 
friends at home to clean out this miserable stable here. Turn 
out the men who violate their oaths and perjure themselves. 
Hurl them from power, and replace them with men who will 
administer the laws as laid down by the sages and patriots 
of the past age, and who will take the Constitution as their 
guide. Your pilot you can trust. He will steer the ship of 
state clear of all shoals and quicksands, and we will again 
be in fact the really great and magnificent "United States. 



CCXCII. 

THE RADICAL PARTY IN CONGRESS— 1866.— Gen. F. P. Blair. 

Fellow-citizens, it is not my intention to detain you any 
great length of time. I had thought, because I myself feel 
a much deeper interest in these questions which concern us 
here at home, and which are of such vital importance, to di- 
rect my attention to them in the opening remarks which I 
have made here, but there are also other great questions in- 
volved in the controversy now pending between the President 
of the United States and the Radical majority in Congress. 
This Radical majority at the beginning of this session of Con- 
gress made its appearance upon the floors of the two Houses 
of Congress demanding negro suffrage and the disfranchise- 



378 sterling's southern" orator. 

ment of the white men of the eleven States recently in re- 
bellion. It was the intention and the object of that party 
to give the right of suffrage in those States to the negroes, 
and take it away from our own race. That gallant, heroic 
race of whom, notwithstanding the fault which they have 
committed — ay, notwithstanding the crime they have com- 
mitted — I have always regarded it as a crime to take up 
arms against the good of our common country — yet they 
have shown themselves to be sincere and devoted in their 
cause. They have evinced courage and endurance ; by their 
gallantry and by their long-suffering in this cause, so mis- 
taken, and so erroneous, and so criminal, they have shown 
themselves to be the equals of any equal number of men 
upon God Almighty's globe. Those who have contended 
against them are those who are the readiest to admit that 
they have shown themselves to be the equals of any 
other people in the world. Not only have they shown 
themselves ready to admit that these men are their equals, 
but they have shown themselves the readiest to over- 
look the past, and forget what there is need of forget- 
ting, and to receive these men back into the Government, 
with all the rights and dignity of their respective States 
unimpaired, simply requiring from them, upon the pledge 
which they will give, that they will renew their allegi- 
ance to the Government of the United States. Cannot 
we trust that pledge if these m£n will give it to us ? Have 
we not reason to believe that they are men of sincerity? 
Can we not confide in these brave men ? I say that we 
can. I say that this is the only way in which they can 
be brought back into the Government and bound to it by 
links of gratitude stronger than any links of steel that can 
be wrought. 

And now I will ask, What foreign nation is there on the 
earth that would not be proud and happy to receive these 
people, and give them all the rights of citizenship enjoyed by 
any of their citizens ? Would not France be eager to do 
it? Would not Great Britain be too proud to extend her 
dominion over that proud country, sharing her government 
with those gallant, noble men who have vindicated their right 
to manhood in this contest unparalleled in the history of war ? 
Would not any foreign nation upon the face of the earth be 
willing to receive this people ? not receive them on degrad- 
ing terms, but receive them in open arms upon an equality 



sterling's southern orator. 879 

with her other citizens ? And we stand here, that is to say, 
the Radicals, or at least that portion of the Radicals who 
were afraid to meet these men in battle array. They stand 
up in Congress and refuse to receive these men back with- 
out degrading them. They are willing to open their arms 
to this inferior race of negroes whom they desire to put on 
top of their own race. I contended for justice for this 
black race in the State of Missouri when there was not a 
Radical in the State of Missouri who dared to open his 
mouth in favor of them. I contended for their emancipation : 
First, because I thought it w T as in the interest of my own 
race that we should have a separation of these races, that 
they should go to themselves, and that our race should be 
kept to itself, pure and uncontaminated by coming in con- 
tact with any inferior race. I wanted to get rid of slavery 
and of the race of negroes, because I thought that slavery 
in a free country poisoned freedom and vitiated it to its 
very core ; and when I did these things, I say and assert it 
here in the face of two thousand of the most intelligent men 
of this State, who know that I speak the truth when I 
say that there was not a Radical then living and now liv- 
ing in the State of Missouri that dared to do the thing 
that I did. But did I demand the emancipation of the 
black race in order to disfranchise and enslave my own 
race ? God forbid ! And no man can be considered the 
friend of liberty and of freedom, however he may proclaim 
himself such, and however he may rant and cant — Gratz 
Brown, with all his ranting and canting, may proclaim him- 
self the friend of freedom as much as he pleases, but as 
long as he stands upon the record as a man acting with a 
party which is in favor of disfranchising his own race, he 
cannot claim the title. He never was an emancipationist in 
this or any other time of his life. The white men of this 
country are to be disfranchised, and for what ? In order 
that a few men who have obtained power in the midst of a 
revolution, w T hen the scum of the earth was boiled up to 
the top, in order that this scum may retain its position. 
There can be no other object, no other motive or pretext. 
They say it is to keep rebels from ruling us. They all 
■ know that to be false. There is no longer anywhere in our 
country any rebellion, except those men who are keeping 
the Union asunder. 



380 sterling's southern orator. 

CCXCIII. 

ALTERING THE VIRGINIA CONSTITUTION— 1829. 

John Randolph. 

Sir, I see no wisdom in making this provision for future 
changes. You must give governments time to operate on 
the people, and give the people time to become gradually 
assimilated to their institutions. Almost any thing is bet- 
ter than this state of perpetual uncertainty. A people 
may have the best form of government that the wit of man 
ever devised, and yet, from its uncertainty alone, may, in 
effect, live under the worst government in the world. Sir, 
how often must I repeat, that change is not reform ? I am 
willing that this new constitution shall stand as long as it 
is possible for it to stand ; and that, believe me, is a very 
short time. Sir, it is vain to deny it. They may say what 
they please about the old constitution — the defect is not 
there. It is not in the form of the old edifice — neither in 
the design nor the elevation; it is in the material — it is in 
the people of Virginia. To my knowledge, that people are 
changed from what they have been. The four hundred 
men who went out to David were in debt. The partisans 
of Caesar were in debt. The fellow-laborers of Catiline 
were in debt. And I defy you to show me a desperately 
indebted people anywhere who can bear a regular, sober 
government. I throw the challenge to all who hear me. 
I say that the character of the good old Virginia planter — 
the man who owned from five to twenty slaves or less, who 
lived by hard work, and who paid his debts — is passed away. 
A new order of things is come. The period has arrived of 
living by one's wits ; of living by contracting debts that 
one cannot pay ; and above all, of living by office hunting. 

Sir, what do we see ? Bankrupts — branded bankrupts — 
giving great dinners, sending their children to the most ex- 
pensive schools, giving grand parties, and just as well re- 
ceived as any body in society ! I say that, in such a state of 
things, the old constitution was too good for them — they 
could not bear it. No, sir ; they could not bear a freehold 
suffrage, and a property representation. I have always 
endeavored to do the people justice ; but I will not flatter 



i 



381 

them — I will not pander to their appetite for change. I 
will do nothing to provide for change. I will not agree to any 
rule of future apportionment, or to any provision for future 
changes, called amendments to the constitution. Those 
who love change — who delight in public confusion — who 
wish to feed the caldron, and make it bubble — may vote, if 
they please, for future changes. But by what spell, by 
what formula, are you going to bind the people to all future 
time ? The days of Lycurgus are gone by, when we could 
swear the people not to alter the constitution until he 
should return. You may make what entries on parchment 
you please ; give me a constitution that will last for half a 
century ; that is all I w T ish for. No constitution that you 
can make will last the one half of half a century. Sir, I 
will stake any thing, short of my salvation, that those who 
are malcontent now will be more malcontent three years 
hence than they are at this day. I have no favor for this 
constitution. I shall vote against its adoption, and I shall 
advise all the people of my district to set their faces — ay, 
and their shoulders, too — against it. 



CCXCIV. 

ULTRA REPUBLICANISM.— William Pinxney. 

But, if a republican form of government is that in which 
all the men have a share in the public power, the slave- 
holding States will not alone retire from the Union. The 
constitutions of some of the other States do not sanction 
universal suffrage or universal eligibility. They require 
citizenship, and age, and a certain amount of property, to 
give a title to vote or to be voted for ; and they who have 
not those qualifications are just as much disfranchised, with 
regard to the government and its power, as if they were 
slaves. They have civil rights indeed, but they have no 
share in the government. Their province is to obey the 
laws, not to assist in making them. All such States must 
therefore be forisfamiliated with Virginia and the rest, or 
change their system ; for the Constitution, being absolutely 
silent on these subjects, will afford them no protection. 



382 sterling's southern orator. 

The Union might thus be reduced from a Union to an unit. 
Who does not see that such conclusions flow from false 
notions — that the true theory of republican government is 
mistaken — and that, in such a government, rights political 
and civil may be qualified by the fundamental law, upon 
such inducements as the freemen of the country deem suffi- 
cient ? That civil rights may be qualified as well as polit- 
ical is proved by a thousand examples. Minors, resident 
aliens, who are in a course of naturalization, the other sex, 
whether maids, or wives, or widows, furnish sufficient prac- 
tical proof. 

Again : if .we are to entertain these hopeful abstractions, 
and to resolve all establishments into their imaginary ele- 
ments in order to recast them upon some Utopian plan, and 
if it be true that all men in a republican government must 
help to wield its power, and be equal in rights, I beg leave 
to ask the honorable gentleman from New-Hampshire, why 
not all the women ? They, too, are God's creatures, and not 
only very fair but very rational creatures; and our great 
ancestor, if we are to give credit to Milton, accounted them 
the u wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best ;" although, to say 
the truth, he had but one specimen from which to draw his 
conclusion, and possibly, if he had had more, would not have 
drawn it at all. They have, moreover, acknowledged rights 
in abundance, and upon abstract principles more than their 
masculine rulers allow them. Some monarchies, too, do not 
exclude them from the throne. We have all read of Eliza- 
beth of England, of Catherine of Russia, of Semiramis, and 
Zenobia, and a long list of royal and imperial dames, about 
as good as an equal list of royal and imperial lords. Why 
is it that their exclusion from the power of a popular govern- 
ment is not destructive of its republican character? I do 
not address this question to the honorable gentleman's 
gallantry, but to his abstraction, and his theories, and his 
notions of the infinite perfectibility of human institutions, 
borrowed from Godwin and the turbulent philosophers of 
France. For my own part, sir, if I may have leave to say 
so much in the presence of this mixed uncommon audience, 
I confess I am no friend to female government, unless indeed 
it be that which reposes on gentleness, and modesty, and 
virtue, and feminine grace and delicacy ; and how power- 
ful a government that is, we have all of us, as I suspect, 
at some time or other experienced ! But if the ultra re- 



sterling's southern orator. 383 

publican doctrines which have now been broached should 
ever gain ground among us, I should not be surprised if 
some romantic reformer, treading in the footsteps of Mrs. 
Wollstonecraft, should propose to repeal our republican law 
salique, and claim for our wives and daughters a full parti- 
cipation in political power, and to add to it that domestic 
power which in some families, as I have heard, is as abso- 
lute and unrepublican as any power can be. 



ccxcv. 

BLOODY BROOK.— E. Everett. 

As I stand on this hallowed spot, my mind filled with the 
traditions of that disastrous day, surrounded by these endur- 
ing natural memorials, impressed with the touching cere- 
monies we have just witnessed — the affecting incidents of 
the bloody scene crowd upon my imagination. This com- 
pact and prosperous village disappears, and a few scattered 
log-cabins are seen, in the bosom of the primeval forest, 
clustering for protection around the rude block-house in the 
centre. A corn-field or two has been rescued from the all- 
surrounding wilderness, and here and there the yellow husks 
are heard to rustle in the breeze, that comes loaded with 
the mournful sighs of the melancholy pine woods. Beyond, 
the interminable forest spreads in every direction, the covert 
of the wolf, of the rattlesnake, of the savage ; and between 
its gloomy copses, what is now a fertile and cultivated 
meadow, stretches out a dreary expanse of unreclaimed 
morass. I look — I listen. All is still — solemnly — fright- 
fully still. No voice of human activity or enjoyment breaks 
the dreary silence of nature, or mingles with the dirge of 
the woods and water-courses. All seems peaceful and still : 
and yet there is a strange heaviness in the fall of the 
leaves in that wood that skirts the road ; there is an un- 
natural flitting in those shadows ; there is a plashing sound 
in the waters of that brook, which makes the flesh creep 
with horror. Hark ! it is the click of a gun-lock from that 
thicket ; — no, it is a pebble that has dropped from the over- 
hanging cliff upon the rock beneath. It is, it is the gleam- 
ing blade of a scalping-knife ; — no, it is a sunbeam thrown 



384: sterling's southern orator. 

off from that dancing ripple. It is, it is the red feather of 
a savage chief peeping from behind that maple-tree ; — no, 
it is a leaf which September has touched with her many- 
tinted pencil. And now a distant drum is heard ; "yes, that 
is a sound of life — conscious, proud life. A single fife 
breaks upon the ear — a stirring strain. It is one of the 
marches to which the stern warriors of Cromwell moved 
over the field at Naseby and Worcester. There are no 
loyal ears to take offence at a puritanical march in a trans- 
atlantic forest; and hard by, at Hadley, there is a gray- 
haired fugitive, who followed the cheering strain at the 
head of his division in the army of the great usurper. The 
warlike note grows louder; — I hear the tread of armed 
men. 



ccxcvi. 

THE WEAPON OF SUFFRAGE.— Edwin Forrest. 

The weapon of suffrage is adequate for all the purposes 
of freemen. From the armory of opinion we issue forth in 
coat of mail more impenetrable than ever cased the limbs 
of warrior on the field of sanguinary strife. Our panoply is 
of surest proof, for it is supplied by reason. Armed with 
the ballot, a better implement of warfare than sword of 
" icebrook's temper," we fight the sure fight, relying with 
steadfast faith on the intelligence and virtue of the majority 
to decide the victory on the side of truth. And should 
error for a while carry the field by his stratagems, his 
opponents, though defeated, are not destroyed ; they rally 
again to the conflict, animated with the strong assurance 
of the ultimate prevalence of right. 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error wounded writhes in pain, 
And dies among his worshippers." 

What bounds can the vision of the human mind descry to 
the spread of American greatness, if we but firmly adhere 
to those first principles of government which have already 



sterling's southern orator. 385 

enabled us in the infancy of national. existence, to vie with 
the proudest of the century-nurtured states of Europe ? 
The old world is cankered with* the diseases of political 
senility, and cramped by the long-worn fetters of tyrannous 
habit. But the empire of the west is in the bloom and fresh- 
ness of being. Its heart is unseared by the prejudices of 
" damned custom ;" its intellect is unclouded by the soph- 
isms of ages. From its borders, kissed by the waves of the 
Atlantic, to 

" The continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashing — " 

from the inland oceans of the north, to the sparkling face 
of the tropical sea, rippled by breezes laden with the 
perfumes of eternal summer, our vast theatre of national 
achievement extends. What a course is here for the grand 
race of democratic liberty ! Within these limits a hundred 
millions of fellow-beings may find ample room and verge 
enough to spread themselves and grow up to their natural 
eminence. With a salubrious clime to invigorate them with 
health, and a generous soil to nourish them with food ; Avith 
the press — that grand embalmer not of the worthless in- 
teguments of mortality, but of the offspring of immortal 
mind — to diffuse its vivifying and ennobling influences over 
them ; with those admirable results of inventive genius to 
knit them together, by which space is deprived of its power 
to bar the progress of improvement and dissipate the cur- 
rent of social amity ; with a political faith which acknow- 
leges, as its fundamental maxim, the golden rule of Chris- 
tian ethics, " Do unto others, as you w^ould that they should 
do unto you :" with these means, and the constantly increas- 
ing dignity of character which results from independence, 
what bounds can be set to the growth of American great- 
ness ? A hundred millions of people ! A hundred millions 
of co-sovereigns, recognizing no law but the recorded will 
of a majority ; no end of law, but mutual and equal good ; 
no superior, but God alone ! 

17 



386 sterling's southern" orator. 

ccxcvii. 

CHERISH TRUE PRIDE OF COUNTRY. 
Daniel M. Barkingee. 

Just restriction is of the essence of liberty. The first 
and vital element of the social compact is obedience to a 
government of some kind or other. Something must be 
permanent to give safety to the system; and the funda- 
mental system, when established, is not to be questioned or 
subverted, but from a deep and clear assurance that it has 
failed to answer the purposes of the social union. Our alle- 
giance is due to the constitution and the laws. Preserve 
inviolate that constitution, and maintain in its purity the 
supremacy of the law. And while you should guard with 
sleepless jealousy the undoubted rights of the States, hold 
on to our glorious Union as the anchor of our safety. Next 
to freedom itself, let the Union of the States be the last plank 
to which we will cling, in the shipwreck of our liberties. 

Preserve untarnished the honor of your country. Let her 
bright escutcheon never be stained with the foul blot of 
Punic faith. Whether in treaty with the most potent power 
on earth, or the defenceless tribe of the wilderness, scorn 
with indignation the man who would pollute, with the 
infamy of national treachery, the proud flag of the Union. 
It has" been as profoundly as beautifully said, that " private 
credit is wealth — public honor is security. The feather that 
adorns the royal bird supports its flight ; strip him of his 
plumage, and you fix him to the earth." 

Cherish an exalted public spirit and a true pride of 
country. Establish the feeling of a common country and 
a common interest. Be American in your sympathies — 
your hopes — your ambition. Let the name of an " Ameri- 
can citizen" be the proudest title to which you can aspire. 
Be animated by the example, and emulate the virtues — the 
elevated integrity — the moderation — the prudence — the 
firmness and constancy — the vigilance and the disinterested 
public spirit, and warm and sincere patriotism of the illus- 
trious men who laid deep the foundations of our greatness ; 
and especially of him whom the very infant has learned to 
revere as the " father of his country" — of him who stands 



i 



sterling's southern orator 387 

first and alone upon the lists of fame — commanding the 
admiration of the wise of the earth, and the unbought 
applause of millions — of him, the streams of whose renown, 
springing from the pure fountains of private integrity and 
public virtue, will continue to flow on, widening and deepen- 
ing, down the channels of time, till the whole earth shall be 
covered with the ocean of his glory ! 



COXCVIII. 

THE TREATY-MAKING POWER.— -William Pinkney. 

In addition to the example of a treaty of peace which I 
have just been considering, let me put another, of which 
none of us can question the reality. The President may 
exercise the power of pardoning, save only in the case of 
impeachments. The power of pardoning is not communi- 
cated by words more precise or comprehensive than the 
power to make treaties. But to what does it amount ? Is 
not every pardon a repeal of the penal law against which 
it gives protection ? Does it not ride over the law, resist 
its commands, and extinguish its effect ? Does it not even 
control the combined force of j udicature and legislation ? 
Yet, have we ever heard that your legislative rights were 
an exception out of the prerogative of mercy ? Who has 
ever pretended that this faculty cannot, if regularly exerted, 
wrestle with the strongest of your statutes ? I may be told 
that the pardoning p#wer necessarily imparts a control over 
the penal code, if it be exercised in the form of a pardon. 
I answer, the power to make treaties equally imparts a 
power to put out of the way such parts of the civil code as 
interfere with its operation, if that power be exerted in the 
form of a treaty. There is no difference in their essence. 
You legislate, in both cases, subject to the power. And 
this instance furnishes another answer, as I have already in- 
timated, to the predictions of abuse with which, on this 
occasion, it has been endeavored to appall us. The pardon- 
ing power is in the President alone. He is not even check- 
ed by the necessity of senatorial concurrence. He may by 
his single fiat extract the sting from your proudest enact- 
ments, and save from their vengeance a convicted offender. 



388 sterling's southern orator. 

Sir, you have my general notions on the bill before you. 
They have no claim to novelty. I imbibed them from some 
of the heroes and sages who survived the storm of that con- 
test to which America was summoned in her cradle. I im- 
bibed them from the father of his country. My under- 
standing approved them, with the full concurrence of my 
heart, when I was much younger than I am now ; and I 
feel no disposition to discard them, now that age and 
feebleness are about to overtake me. I could say more- 
much more — upon this high question; but I want health 
and strength. It is, perhaps, fortunate for the house that I 
do ; as it prevents me from fatiguing them as much as I 
fatigue myself. 



COXCIX. 

THE RESULTS OP OUR INSTITUTIONS. 

Alexander H. Stephens. 

It is true there is no equal part of the earth with natural 
resources superior, perhaps, to ours. That portion of this 
country known as the Southern States, stretching from the 
Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, is fully equal to the picture 
drawn by the honorable and eloquent senator last night, 
in all natural capacities. But how many ages, centuries, 
passed before these capacities were developed, to reach this 
advanced stage of civilization ? Th%re, these same hills, 
rich ore, same rivers, same valleys and plains, are as they 
have been since they came from the hand of the Creator. 
Uneducated and uncivilized man roamed over them, for 
how long, no history informs us. 

It was only under our institutions that they could be 
developed. The development is the result of the enterprise 
of our people under the operations of the government insti- 
tutions under which we have lived. Even our people, with- 
out these, never would have done it. The organization of 
society has much to do with the development of the natural 
resources of any country or any land. The institutions of 
a people, political and moral, are the matrix in which the 
germ of their organic structure quickens into life, takes 



sterling's southern orator. 389 

root, and develops, in form, nature, and character. Our 
institutions constitute the basis, the matrix, frojp. which 
spring all our characteristics of development and greatness. 
Look at Greece! There is the same fertile soil, the same 
blue sky, the same inlets and harbors, the same iEgean, the 
same Olympus — there is the same land where Homer sung, 
where Pericles spoke ; it is in nature the same old Greece ; 
but it is living Greece no more. 

Descendants of the same people inhabit the country ; yet 
what is the reason of the mighty difference ? In the midst 
of present degradation, we see the glorious fragments of 
ancient works of art ; temples with ornaments tind inscrip- 
tions that excite wonder and admiration, the remains of a 
once high order of civilization, which have outlived the 
language they spoke. Upon them all, Ichabod is written — 
their glory has departed. Why is this so ? I answer, their 
institutions have been destroyed. These were but the 
fruits of their forms of government, the matrix from which 
their grand development sprung ; and when once the insti- 
tutions of our people shall have been destroyed, there is 
no earthly power that can bring back the Promethean spark 
to kindle them here again, any more than in that ancient 
land of eloquence, poetry, and song. The same may be 
said of Italy. Where is Rome, once the mistress of the 
world ? There are the same seven hills now, the same soil, 
the same natural resources ; nature is the same: but what 
a ruin of human greatness meets the eye of the traveller 
throughout the length and breadth of that most down-trod- 
den land ! Why have not the people of the heaven-favored 
clime the spirit that animated their fathers? Why this 
sad difference ? It* is the destruction of her institutions 
has caused it. And, my countrymen, if we shall in an evil 
hour rashly pull down and destroy those institutions which 
the patriotic hand of our fathers labored so long and so hard 
to build up, and which have done so much for us and for 
the world, who can venture the prediction that similar re- 
sults will not ensue ? Let us avoid them if we can. I trust 
the spirit is amongst us that will enable us to do it. Let 
us not rashly try the experiment of change, of pulling 
down and destroying ; for, as in Greece and Italy, and the 
South- American republics, and in every other place, when- 
ever our liberty is lost 3 it may never be restored to us 



390 sterling's southern orator. 

# * ceo. 

EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE.— Henry W. Miller. 

Are you a youth — burning with a high and laudable am- 
bition to excel in all the noble pursuits of life, and to build up 
for yourself a lofty and imperishable fame ? If so, beware, 
I entreat you, how you touch the fatal cup ! Beware how 
you lift your impotent arm against an institution which 
has already snatched thousands, wiser and better than your- 
self, like brands from the burning ! Remember that dan- 
gerous and difficult indeed is the ascent to that steep where 
"fame's proud temple shines afar." Many, very many, 
have gone before you in the same track, with as proud hopes 
and as high ambition. Alas ! how many of them have gone 
but to drink, to revel, to reel, and to fall, melancholy vic- 
tims of their own self-destroying madness ! Are you a 
patriot ? Do you desire to see perpetuated those civil and 
religious institutions which were won by the blood, and 
have been transmitted to you by the wisdom, of your fathers ? 
Do you value, as above all price, that glorious Union which 
has heretofore made us one people — one in interest — one in 
hope — one in feeling — one in glory — one in destiny ? Do you 
wish to secure from being broken into fragments that sacred 
urn in which are deposited the ashes of the illustrious 
dead of our land, and around which is clinging the rich re- 
membrance of their immortal deeds ? If you do, beware 
how you intrust the destinies of the nation to men who, scorn- 
ing the melancholy teachings of experience, and infusing 
more of intoxication into the brain than of patriotism into 
the heart, are fit subjects to become, at any moment, the 
supple and sycophantic followers or the maddened leaders 
of any fanatical crusade against the best and most sacred in- 
stitutions of the land ! Are you a Christian ? Do you pro- 
fess to be a follower of Him who, whilst here upon earth, 
went about doing good, and whose whole example was one 
of benevolence, charity, and love ? If so, how in the name 
of all that is good here, and all that is awful in the realities 
of the life to come, can you stand aloof and gaze upon the 
suffering, the degradation, and misery which have been pro- 
duced by intemperance, without an effort to alleviate its evil 
or stay its progress ? Can you listen with composure and 



sterling's southern orator. 391 

cold indifference to the appeals of wretchedness which come 
up from thousands and tens of thousands of habitations 
throughout the land? 

And am I asked for evidence of the reality of all this ? 

Go to the miserable hovel, and ask its care-w r orn tenant 
what brought her and her tattered and half-starved offspring 
to such condition? 

Go to your prison-houses, and inquire of the trembling 
culprit whence came the tempter who mixed such poison in 
his cup of life ? 

Go to your hospitals — where disease and death glare their 
terrific visages — and ask what hand scattered the fatal seeds ? 

Go to the prostrate and blasted genius, and inquire what 
demon dipped in venom the arrow which brought him down 
from his lofty eyry ? 

Goto the home of the broken and bleeding heart, and ask 
whence came the serpent that turned its paradise into a 
hell? 

Go to the wretched maniac, and seek to know what ruth- 
less hand erased from his once erect and well-poised mind 
the image of its Deity ? 

Go to the whitened head of age, and ask what palsied 
touch shattered his trembling limbs and bent down his once 
noble frame prematurely to its mother earth ? 

Go to the bedside of one who writhes under the burning 
grasp of delirium, and catch if you can a glimpse of the hid- 
eous forms and terrific visions which flit in quick succession 
across his distempered imagination. Ash him what has 
shut out from his view all of peace and hope, and fixed 
upon his soul the horrors of the damned ? 

Get a response from all such, and then, if you remain any 
longer silent and careless spectators of the great work of 
Kindness, Charity, and Temperance, which is going on 
around you — heavy, awful indeed, will be the accountability 
which is in store for you, if there be truth, as there assured- 
ly is, in the word of God, and justice at His judgment-seat ! 



892 sterling's southern orator. 

ccci. 

THE DANGERS FROM MOBOCRACY.— H. L. Pinckney. 

We boast of the capacity of man to govern himself. We 
profess to uphold the majesty of the laws, to revere the sanc- 
tity of justice, and to act on the principle that a man is presum- 
ed to be innocent, until he has been proved to be guilty. 
Events, however, have recently occurred, setting all these 
principles at defiance, trampling on the institutions of justice, 
and threatening to uproot the foundations of civil society 
itself. The spirit of mobocracy has crossed the Atlantic, 
and burst forth in this land of law, in all its hideous deform- 
ity and atrocious violence. Property is destroyed, cruelty 
inflicted, and even life itself is taken, not merely on suspi- 
cion, but often in cases where it is known that no guilt ex- 
ists. Now, unless this lawless spirit is arrested, it will 
necessarily become more frequent in occurrence and more 
violent in action. No man's life or property will be safe, 
who happens to be enrolled on the list of the proscribed. An- 
archy will usurp the place of law, and our country will be- 
come the theatre of many a bloody and disgraceful scene, 
in which not only every act of violence will be an outrage 
on society, but in which, from the very nature of the case, 
the innocent will be punished indiscriminately with the 
guilty. And, akin to this spirit of illegal violence, is that 
revolting doctrine that would array the poor against the 
rich, as opposite and hostile classes, and that labors to in- 
troduce a community of 'property \ under the specious appella- 
tion of an equality of rights. History affords many warn- 
ing examples of its baleful fruits. In the Grecian common- 
wealths, contests frequently arose from the inequality of 
property, and, whenever the poor prevailed, they expelled 
the rich, and took possession of their wealth. Similar con- 
tests arose in Rome, and produced the passage of Agrarian 
laws. This same doctrine was interwoven with the French 
Revolution, and caused many of the horrors of that memo- 
rable drama. And now we have it in America. It is true that 
it has been hitherto confined to the more populous cities of the 
North, and that, from the peculiar organization of Southern 
society, and particularly from the institution of domestic slav- 
ery, it can scarcely be said to have gained a foothold in the 



i 



sterling's southern orator. 393 

region of the South. But, like the spirit of mobocracy, it is 
contagious in its character, and therefore cannot be too 
solemnly deprecated or too earnestly resisted. If not check- 
ed at the North, it may spread to the South, and, wherever 
it appears, it is destined, sooner or later, to produce a con- 
vulsion of all the elements of civil society, to which nothing 
can be compared but the tremendous eruption of a burning 
mountain. He, therefore, who aspires to the title of a patri- 
ot, should be the uncompromising opponent of every doc- 
trine and every practice, no matter how glossed by specious 
pretexts, or artfully urged for the public good, of which 
the tendency is to substitute lawless violence for the estab- 
lished forms of justice, or to produce a conflict between dif- 
ferent portions of the people, which insidious agitators may 
produce, but which, when once begun, no human power or 
wisdom can control. 



Cecil. 

THE HUMAN MIND.— John Tyler. 

There was a wisdom and a power exerted in the for- 
mation of man inexpressibly great, and most truly won- 
derful. In the anatomy of the physical system there is 
much to excite our admiration. The heart, like the ocean, 
at each pulsation pours out the blood through the arteries, 
giving life and activity to the whole mechanism. The 
thew r s, the sinews and muscles, nay, every bone and thread 
and fibre, performs its appropriate function, and concurs 
in producing and preserving the most inexplicable of all 
mysteries, animal life. Look upon the form divine of the 
youth who is in the act of transition from puberty to man- 
hood ; his blood runs frolic through his veins, and the deer 
bounding over the dewy law^n is not more agile or airy in 
its step. His eye and cheek bespeak the varied emotions 
which arise from time to time within his breast. His voice 
is attuned to harmony, and the graces of his person and 
manliness of his form vie with each other for excellence, 
He would constitute a model worthy the chisel of a Phidias 
or Praxiteles. It is full of life and beauty and majesty — that 



394 sterling's southern orator. 

youthful form. But how much more to be wondered at and 
admired the human mind ? How mysterious its operations ! 
how astonishing its results ! The body, however beauti- 
ful, is of the earth, earthy ; its sphere of action is limited 
and circumscribed ; it has speed of feet, but no wings with 
which to fly ; it may reach the summit of the loftiest moun- 
tain, but it can rise no higher. But what can circumscribe 
or limit that ethereal essence the human mind? On the 
wings of the morning it flies to meet the sun at its rising, 
follows it in its course through the heavens, and watches it 
at the moment in which, with its last ray, it bids the world 
good night. And when night throws its mantle over all 
things, it follows each star along its path of light, numbers 
the myriad host, and chases the comet in its eccentric flight. 
Turned to earth, it penetrates her darkest abodes, walks 
among her hidden fires, plunges into the depth of ocean, 
and makes companions of the monsters of the deep. Stand- 
ing on the present, it looks back upon the past, and con- 
templates the future. It holds converse with the men of 
other days. It sits by the side of the Ptolemies on the throne 
of Egypt, beholds Achilles in his wrath, and Troy in flames ; 
attends ^Eneas in his flight to Italy, and, with the twin- 
brothers, lays the first stone in the walls of Rome ; it holds 
converse with Socrates and Plato, and is familiar with the 
academic groves and with the philosophers ; it is in the as- 
sembly of the people with Demosthenes, or in the senate 
chamber with Cicero ; it listens to Pindaric strains, or hears 
the tuneful Maro sing. It follows the course of empires 
and of states, marks alike the causes of their greatness and 
of their decay and downfall. Loaded with the riches of 
the past, it goes to work for the present and future ; it con- 
ceives, it plans, it executes ; chains cannot restrain or dun- 
geons confine it. How mysterious and how grand its opera- 
tions ! And yet, if we are lost in astonishment at the 
capacities of the mind of man, how absolutely inexpressi- 
ble become our thoughts, when we contemplate, as far as 
finite capacities are permitted, the infinitude of mind pos- 
sessed by the Creator. The human mind is but a spark 
struck out from the sun — a mere emanation from the centre 
of all light : and yet, I repeat, how wonderful its concep- 
tions, how sublime its operations ! 



sterling's southern orator. 895 

CCCIII. 

GOD IN CREATION.— Rev. J. Henry Smith. 

The earth on which we live and the heavens by which 
we are surrounded display the wisdom, goodness, and justice 
of God. Every thing is a letter or syllable contributing 
its part to spell his great name. " His work is honorable 
and glorious." " He hath made his wonderful works to be 
remembered." "The heavens declare the glory of God, 
and the firmament showeth his handiwork; day unto day 
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge." 
" The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them 
that have pleasure therein." 

"In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth in glorious voice, 
Forever singing, as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine." 

The whole frame of nature is God's residence and tem- 
ple, " and in His temple, all of it says, Glory !" not merely 
" speaks of Sis glory" as the English version has it, but 
"all of it" — all its parts, its contents, or its inhabitants, as 
their constant and involuntary exclamation, " says, Glory !" 
The " undevout astronomer" or naturalist is " mad." He 
who studies and admires the world without recognizing 
God is blind. 

God's works of creation and providence are full of design, 
of beauty, of excellence. Their primary object is to reveal 
" His eternal power and Godhead." They present endless 
matter for religious and holy, as well as for philosophical 
and scientific investigation. We are to look up always 
" through nature to nature's God." " Nature is but another 
name for an effect whose cause is God." All knowledge, 
therefore, ought to subserve our religion. The size of the 
world, its place and movements, its varied surface, its con- 
tinents, islands, oceans, rivers, mountains, and valleys, its 
mineral curiosities, wonders, and riches, its atmosphere, 
its star-bespangled canopy, its very deserts, earthquakes, 
tempests, and volcanoes — all display the wisdom, power, 
goodness, justice, and majesty of God. Every science is 



398 sterling's southern orator. 

a part of theology. This earth of ours, the very forms, the 
arrangement and the distribution of its land and water, are 
accidental only in appearance. One fourth of our earth is 
land and three fourths is water. This proportion is neces- 
sary for the life and health of its plants and animals. If a 
portion of the water or of the land were to be destroyed, 
thousands of plants and animals would instantly perish. It 
required infinite wisdom to make and adjust all these 
things ; it required infinite wisdom to people and fill the 
earth after it was made ; it requires incessantly infinite wds- 
dom and power to sustain and perpetuate them, these rela- 
tions and adjustments. Whewell, in his " Astronomy and 
Physics," says : u An earth greater or smaller, denser or 
rarer, than the one on which we live, would require a 
change in the situation and strength of the footstalks of all 
the little flowers that hang their heads under our hedges. 
There is something curious in considering the whole mass 
of this earth from pole to pole, and from circumference to 
centre, as employed in keeping a violet or snow-drop in the 
position most suited to the promotion of its vegetable 
health." There are millions of multiplied arrangements by 
which the world or " cosmos" is sustained and made to per- 
form its functions. The more extensively, profoundly, and 
reverently we study nature and history, physics and meta- 
physics, earth and man, the position and direction of the 
mountains, the course and flow of the rivers, the elevation 
or depression of the land, the size and location of the con- 
tinents, the smoothness of outline and area, or indentation 
with gulfs, peninsulas, inland seas, (thus increasing their 
coast or water line)- — art, science, commerce, civilization, etc. 
— we are forced to see that all stand in close relation to 
each other, and form only one grand harmony. We must 
elevate ourselves to the spiritual and moral world to under- 
stand the physical ; the physical world has no meaning ex- 
cept by and for the moral world." Every thing is manifestly 
a portion of a great whole. The plan and the idea of the 
whole go infinitely beyond each separate part. It reveals 
its Maker and its Governor, and many of His wise and glori- 
ous purposes, and is designed and adapted to educate man, 
especially to know, and love, and worship Him. It is a 
great temple and a great school-house combined, filled with 
all the apparatus and books, for instruction and worship / 
and it declares its object, as clearly as a church or an 



sterling's southern orator. 397 

academy f does the purpose for which they are built, arrang- 
ed, and furnished. We repeat, he who studies and admires 
nature without recognizing God is blind and mad. Theism 
is the truth that lies at the foundation of all truth and 
knowledge — its far-reaching circumference sweeps infinitely 
above and beyond the comprehension of men or angels. 
Atheism is a lie, it is the sum of unreason, it is an inextri- 
cable and infinite absurdity. 



COCIV. 

EDUCATION.— St. George Tucker. 

One great advance I mark with pride elate — 
The education of our noble State. 
Hail Education, monarch of the mind, 
The world's great Teacher, lever of mankind ! 
5 Tis thine, replete with blessings or with ban, 
To form the vicious or the virtuous man ; 
To the soft clay, its fashion to impart, 
And stamp thy seal upon the unhardened heart ! 
The patriot owns thy power, and gladly hears 
That country call, which nursed his earlier years ; 
The traitor, in his crime, remembers still 
Lessons in youth, which warped his heart to ill. 
Say what you please — dispute it as you can, 
The boy, at last, is "father to the man ;" 
And vice or virtue, error or the truth, 
Are plants first nurtured in the heart of youth. 

See the poor blinded Hindoo, with a smile, 
Clasp her dead lord, and mdtint his funeral pile, 
Alike to her the tomb or bridal bed, 
Faithful in death, the consort of the dead ; 
No pang she feels, his servant while in life, 
She must not widowed be, but still his w r ife ; 
And, while her thoughts to higher worlds aspire, 
She lights her nuptial torch upon his pyre ! 

Lo ! where yon mother, with instruction mild, 
Teaches the way of life unto her child 



398 sterling's southern orator. 

Submissive at her feet, he meekly bends, 
While from his lisping lips a prayer ascends ; 
' His tiny feet, fatigued with artless play, 
Peep through the snowy gown, less white than they; 
His soft blue eye beams through the lashes curled, 
Nor dimmed nor dazzled by a heartless world ; 
His little hands clasped on the mother's chair, 
Mimic her manner in the simple prayer ; 
While at her feet he listens to receive 
The first, the noblest lesson — to believe ! 

Can aught that moralists or sages teach 
Surpass the beauty of that infant speech? 
Can hopes fulfilled, or fame, or fortune fair 
Blot from his memory that early prayer ? 
No ! As he wanders on his weary way, 
And mourns the joys that bloom but to decay, 
When, spirit broken with life's wasting toil, 
From his worn feet he shakes the ungenial soil, 
Longs for the grave, as Christian for the cross, 
To drop his burden there — a welcome loss ; 
Then memory comes — the soother comes at last, 
And from the gloomy deluge of the past, 
She brings that prayer, as the devoted dove, 
An olive branch of happiness and love ! 

Thus Education is our guardian still, 
And warps the heart to virtue or to ill, 
Moulds mind and soul, as potters shape the clod, 
And claims to be a teacher sent from God. 



cccv. 
IMMORTALITY.— Richard H. Dana. 



And do our loves all perish with our frames ? 
Do those that took their root and put forth buds, 
And their soft leaves unfolded in the warmth 
Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty, 



sterling's southern orator. 399 

Then fade and fall, like fair, unconscious flowers ? 

Are thoughts and passions, that to the tongue give speech, 

And make it send forth winning harmonies — 

That to the cheek do give its living glow, 

And vision in the eye the soul intense 

With that for which there is no utterance — 

Are these the body's accidents ? — no more ? — 

To live in it, and, when that dies, go out 

Like the burnt taper's flame ? 

Oh, listen, man ! 
A voice within us speaks the startling word, 
" Man, thou shalt never die !" Celestial voices 
Hymn it around our souls : according harps, 
By angel fingers touched when the mild stars 
Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
The song of our great immortality : 
Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, 
The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas, 
Join in this solemn, universal song. 
— Oh, listen ye, our spirits ; drink it in 
From all the air ! 5 Tis in the gentle moonlight, 
'Tis floating in day's setting glories ; Night, 
Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step 
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears : 
Night, and the dawn, bright day, and thoughtful eve, 
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse, 
As one vast mystic instrument, are touched 
By an unseen, living Hand, the conscious chords 
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee : 
— The dying hear it, and the sounds of earth 
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
To mingle in this heavenly harmony. 



CCCVI. 
MARMION AND THE DOUGLAS.— Sm Walter Scott. 

Not far advanced was morning day, 
When Marmion did his troop array 
To Surrey's camp to ride ; 



400 sterling's southern orator. 

He had safe conduct for his band, 
Beneath the royal seal and hand, 

And Douglas gave a guide. 
The train from out the castle drew ; 
But Marmion stopped to bid adieu : 

" Though something I might plain," he said, 
64 Of cold respect to stranger guest, 
Sent hither by your king's behest, 

While in Tantallon's towers I staid, 
Part we in friendship from your land, 
And, noble earl, receive my hand." 
But Douglas round him drew his cloak, 
Folded his arms, and thus he spoke : 
"My manors, halls, and bowers shall still 
Be open at my sovereign's will, 
To each one whom he lists, howe'er 
Unmeet to be the owner's peer : 
My castles are my king's alone, 
From turret to foundation stone— 
The hand of Douglas is his own, 
And never shall in friendly grasp 
The hand of such as Marmion qlasp." 
Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire, 
And shook his very frame for ire, 

And, " This to me !" he said : 
" An 'twere not for thy hoary beard, 
Such hand as Marmion's had not spared 

To cleave the Douglas' head ! 
And first, I tell thee, haughty peer, 
He who does England's message here, 
Although the meanest in her state, 
May well, proud Angus, be thy mate : 
And, Douglas, more I tell thee here, 

Even in thy pitch of pride, 
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near, 
(Nay, never look upon your lord, 
And lay your hands upon your sword,) 

I tell thee, thou'rt defied ! 
And if thou saidst, I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 

Lord Angus, thou hast lied." 
On the earl's cheek the flush of rage 
O'ercame the ashen hue of age ; 



401 



Fierce he broke forth : " And dar'st thou then 
To beard the lion in his den, 

The Douglas in his hall ? 
And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go ? 
No, by St. Bride of Both well, no ! 
Up drawbridge, grooms — what, warder, ho ! 

Let the portcullis fall." 
Lord Marmion turned — well was his need — 
And dashed the rowels in his steed, 
Like arrow through the archway sprung ; 
The ponderous grate behind him rung : 
To pass there was such scanty room, 
The bars, descending, razed his plume. 



CCCVII. 

SABBATH EVENING.— G. D. Prentice. 

5 Tis holy time. The evening shade 

Steals with a soft control 
O'er nature, as a thought of heaven 

Steals o'er the human soul ; 
And every ray from yonder blue, 
And every drop of falling dew, 
Seems to bring down to human woes 
From heaven a message of repose. 

O'er yon tall rock and solemn trees 

And shadowy groups incline, 
Like gentle nuns in sorrow bowed 

Around their holy shrine ; 
And o'er them now the night winds blow 
So still and calm, the music low 
Seems the mysterious voice of prayer 
Soft echoed in the midnight air. 

The mists, like incense from the earth, 

Rise to a God beloved, 
And o'er the waters move as erst 

The Holy Spirit moved : 



402 sterling's southern orator. 

The torrent's voice, the wave's low hymn, 
Seem the fair notes of seraphim, 
And all earth's thousand voices raise 
Their songs of worship, love, and praise. 

The gentle sisterhood of flowers 

Bend low their lovely eyes, 
Or gaze through trembling tears of dew 

Up to the lofty skies ; 
And the pure stars come out above 
Like sweet and blessed things of love, 
Bright signals in th' eternal dome 
To guide the parted spirit home. 

There is a spell of blessedness 

In earth, and air, and heaven, 
And nature wears the blessed look 

Of a young saint forgiven : 
Oh, who, at such an hour of love, 
Can gaze at all around, above, 
And not kneel down upon the sod 
With nature's self to worship God ? 



CCCVIII. 

THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE.— Anonymous. 

I said to Sorrow's awful storm, 
That beat against my breast, 
" Rage on ! thou may'st destroy this form, 
And lay it low at rest ; 
But still the spirit, that now brooks 

Thy tempest, raging high, 
Undaunted, on its fury looks 

With steadfast eye." 

I said to Penury's meagre train, 
" Come on ! your threats I brave ; 
My last, poor life-drop you may drain, 
And crush me to the grave ; 



sterling's southern orator. 403 

Yet still the spirit, that endures, 

Shall mock your force the while, 
And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours 
With bitter smile. 55 

I said to cold Neglect and Scorn, 
" Pass on ! I heed you not ; 
Ye may pursue me till my form 

And being are forgot ; 
Yet still the spirit, which you see 

Undaunted by your wiles, 
Draws from its own nobility 

Its high-born smiles." 

I said to Friendship's menaced blow, 
" Strike deep ! my heart shall bear ; 
Thou canst but add one bitter woe 

To those already there ; 
Yet still the spirit, that sustains 

This last severe distress, 
Shall smile upon its keenest pains, 
And scorn redress." 

I said to Death's uplifted dart, 
" Aim sure ! oh, why delay ? 
Thou wilt not find a fearful heart — 

A weak, reluctant prey ; 
For still the spirit, firm and free, 
Triumphant in the last dismay, 
Wrapt in its own eternity, 

Shall smiling pass away." 



cccix. 
NIGHT. — J. Montgomery. 

Night is the time for rest : 
How sweet when labors close, 

To gather round an aching breast 
The curtain of repose ! 



404: sterling's southern orator. 

Stretch the tired limbs and lay the head 
Upon our own delightful bed ! 

Night is the time for dreams, 

The gay romance of life ; 
"When truth that is, and truth that seems, 

Blend in fantastic strife ; 
Ah ! visions less beguiling far 
Than waking dreams by daylight are ! 

Night is the time for toil ; 

To plough the classic field, 
Intent to find the buried spoil 

Its wealthy furrows yield ; 
Till all is ours that sages taught, 
That poets sang, or heroes wrought. 

Night is the time to weep ; 

To wet with unseen tears 
Those graves of memory, where sleep 

The joys of other years ; 
Hopes that were angels in their birth, 
But perished young, like things of earth. 

Night is the time to watch ; 

On ocean's dark expanse, 
To hail the Pleiades, or catch 

The full moon's earliest glance, 
That brings unto the homesick mind 
All we have loved and left behind. 

Night is the time for care ; 

Brooding on hours misspent, 
To see the spectre of despair 

Come to our lonely tent ; 
Like Brutus, 'mid his slumbering host, 
Startled by Caesar's stalwart ghost. 

Night is the time to muse ; 

Then from the eye the soul 
Takes flight, and, with expanding views, 

Beyond the starry pole, 



sterling's southern orator. 405 

Descries, athwart the abyss of night, 
The dawn of uncreated light. 

Night is the time to pray ; 

Our Saviour oft withdrew 
To desert mountains far away : 

So will his followers do ; 
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, 
And hold communion there with God. 

Night is the time for death ; 

When all around is peace, 
Calmly to yield the weary breath, 

From sin and suffering cease ; 
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign 
To parting friends : — such death be mine ! 



cccx. 
LIBERTY OF ATHENS.— J. G. Percival. 

The flag of freedom floats once more 

Around the lofty Parthenon ; 
It waves, as waved the palm of yore, 

In days departed long and gone ; 
As bright a glory, from the skies, 

Pours down its light around those towers, 
And once again the Greeks arise, 

And in their country's noblest hours ; 
Their swords are girt in virtue's cause, 

Minerva's sacred hill is free — 
Oh, may she keep her equal laws, 

While man shall live, and time shall be. 

The pride of all her shrines went down ; 

The Goth, the Frank, the Turk had reft 
The laurel from her civic crown ; 

Her helm by many a sword was cleft : 
She lay among her ruins low — 

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose, 



406 sterling's southern orator. 

And, crushed and bruised by many a blow, 
She cowered beneath her savage foes ; 

But now, again she springs from earth, 
Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks ; 

She rises in a brighter birth, 

And sounds redemption to the Greeks. 

It is the classic jubilee— 

Their servile years have rolled away ; 
The clouds that hovered o'er them flee, 

They hail the dawn of freedom's day ; 
From Heaven the golden light descends, 

The times of old are on the wing, 
And glory there her pinion bends, 

And beauty wakes a fairer spring ; 
The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves, 

Are all in triumph's pomp arrayed ; 
A light that points their tyrants' graves, 

Plays round each bold Athenian's blade. 



cccxi. 

A SHORT SERMON.— Henry Ellen. 

" He who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." 

The night wind comes in sudden squalls ; 
The ruddy firelight starts and falls 
Fantastically on the walls. 

The bare trees all their branches wave ; 
The frantic wind doth howl and rave 
Like prairie wolf above a grave. 

And though the storm is on the wane, 
Still through the lattice, on the pane 
Spatters the heavy dismal rain. 

The moon looks out ; but cold and pale, 
And seeming scared at this wild gale, 
Draws o'er her pallid face a veil. 



sterling's southern orator. 407 

In vain I turn the poet's page, 
In vain consult some ancient sage, 
I hear alone the tempest rage. 

The shutters tug at hinge and bar, 
The windows clash with frosty jar, 
The child creeps closer to "Papa." 

And now, I almost start aghast, 
The clamor rises thick and fast, 
Surely a troop of fiends drove past ! 

That last shock shook the oaken door, 
Sounding like billows on the shore ; 
On such a night God shield the poor ! 

God shield the poor to-night who stay 
In piteous homes ! who, if they pray, 
Ask thee, O God ! for bread and day ! 

Think ! think ! ye men who daily wear 
<c Purple and linen" — ye, whose hair 
Flings perfume on the tempered air — 

Think ! think ! I say, ay, start and think 
That many tremble on death's brink — 
Dying for want of meat and drink. 

When tattered poor folk meet your eyes, 
Think, friend, like Christian in this wise, 
Each one is Christ hid in disguise. • 

Then when you hear the tempest's roar 
That thunders at your carved door, 
Know that it knocketh for the poor. 



408 sterling's southern orator. 

CCCXII. 
HOME AGAIN. — So. Lit. Messenger. 



I am dreaming of the vanished years and all their hopes so 

vain, 
While I listen to the patter of the chilly autumn rain, 
And the sobbing, dreary voices of the night winds rushing by, 
Saying mournfully to summer's flowers, " It is the hour to 

die," 
And my heart repeats half dreamily, " It is the hour to die." 

ii. 

Seven summers, seven summers, only seven have gone past 
Since I dreamed the dreams of boyhood, since my mother 

blessed me last ; 
Seven summers, seven winters, in a foreign land I spent 
With the memory of that blessing calming every discon- 
tent, 
Keeping with me, always cheering, wheresoever my footsteps 
went. 

in. 

" Home again," my spirit murmurs, " home again," and yet 
I see 

Weeds up-springing, rank and tangled, where our flower- 
beds used to be : 

<c Home again," my lips are saying, but it seemeth not like 
homje — 

No one comes with smile to greet me, no one says, " We're 
glad you're come ;" 

And my soul cries out in anguish, " Where is mother ? where 
is home ?" 

rv. 

Desolation, desolation, reigns in quiet triumph here, 
All is clouded, dank, and heavy, all is cold and wildly drear ; 
Mem'ry gave to me a picture of a sweet home, bright and 
fair, 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 409 

In my heart of hearts I kept it with a miser's watchful care, 
But its shrine is changed and darkened, only chaos now is 
there. 



Standing here upon the threshold of my mother's fav'rite 

room, 
I am thinking, sadly thinking, of the hours of strife and 

gloom 
Spent since last I looked upon it, spent since last she smiled 

on me, 
Smiled, although her low voice quivered, and her tears fell 

tremblingly : 
44 Trust in God, my son," she whispered, " He will always 

succor thee !" 

VI. 

Words of cheer I tried to utter, words of cheer were in my 

soul, 
But the sobs would not be silenced, and I wept without 

control ; 
Thus we parted, thus we parted : I have crossed the mighty 

main, 
Fondly thinking, vainly hoping, I might see her face again : 
But the grave is closed above her, and my heart is weak 

with pain. 

VII. 

There is one who loves me truly, more than all the world 

beside — 
When the light of spring is dawning, I may claim her as my 

bride : 
She is motherless and lonely, oft I've said to her in jest : 
4C I'm afraid, when mother knows you, she will learn to love 

you best, 
Best of all her darling children, for you're better than the 

rest." 

VIII. 

Oft I've promised that next summer I would bring her to 
the bowers 

Where I used tt> weave bright garlands in my careless child- 
hood's hours : 
18 



410 STERLING'S SOUTHERN" ORATOR. 

Oft she laughed and answered gayly : " In our land you've 

learned to twine 
Sunbeam wreaths, and round my spirit may they never cease 

to shine — 
Lead me where thou wilt, my only, where thy home is, shall 

T>e mine." 

IX. 

Now my home is in her country — I will hasten back again, 
She alone can give me pleasure, she alone can soothe my 

pain : 
Change has broken, rudely broken, mem'ry's sweet and holy 
i . spell — 

There are dirges on the night winds, in my heart there 

sounds a knell ; 
Hark ! there spoke a mocking spirit, " Twelve o'clock, and 
: all is well." 



CCCXIII. 
DREAMS OP MY CHILDHOOD.— Anonymous. 

Dreams of my childhood that from me have fled, 

And left me alone in this visionless life, 
Take with you, too, the pale forms of your dead, 

CNTo memories leave to embitter the strife : 
Dream-land! in thee I must wander no more ! 

Tade from my soul to Oblivion again ! 
Leave me to struggle on Life's dreary shore, 

Till death bears me on to the main. 

Are the soft airs awakened that so long have slept ? 

Whence are these whispers so pensive and low ? 
They start the warm tears that once happiness wept, 

They soften my soul to a passionate glow : 
Far away from the dwellings of cold-hearted men 

Let me wander once more to the glade, 
Where the rose- light of Fancy may sparkle again 

O'er the heart that is drooping in shade. 



sterling's southern orator. 411 

Hark to the stream with its ripples at play ! 

• Hark to the whispering trees ! 

They weave tjieir low song through the long, sunny day, 

And murmur it soft to the breeze ; 
The sunbeams are dancing o'er leaf and o'er flower, 

The 4ew-drops are sparkling in light, 
The clouds which but darkened the morning an hour 

Are melting away from the sight. 

The insects are humming, the forest is gay 

As it echoes the carol of birds, 
Who pour out their thanks for the bright summer day 

In a song too enchanting for words ; 
The voices of waters, the murmur of bees, 

The flowers, and the soft sunny light, 
Have floated away like a song on the breeze, 

Or the day fading into the night. 

Visions of youth ! say why have ye come ? 

Why have ye wakened this sad heart to pain ? 
Brought ye the light but to deepen the gloom ? 

Waked ye lost joys to recall them again? 
Dreams of my childhood, that from me have fled, 

Leave me to toil on Life's desolate shore — 
Take with you, too, the cold forms of your dead, 

Bring back the visions of youth — never more. 



cccxiv. 

ITALY r — Edwaud Choat Pinkkey. 

Know'st thou the land which lovers ought to choose ? 

Like blessings there descend the sparkling dews, 

In gleaming streams the crystal rivers run, 

The purple vintage clusters in the sun ; 

Odors of flowers haunt the balmy breeze, 

Rich fruits hang high upon the verdant trees ; 

And vivid blossoms gem the shady groves, 

Where bright-plumed birds discourse their careless loves. 

Beloved ! speed we from this sullen strand 

Until thy light feet touch that green shore's yellow sand. 



412 sterling's southern orator. 

Look seaward thence, and naught shall meet thine eye 

But fairy isles like paintings on the sky ; 

And flying fast and free before the gale, m 

The gaudy vessel with its glancing sail ; 

And waters glittering in the glare of noon, 

Or touched with silver by the stars and moon, 

Or flecked with broken lines of crimson light, 

When the far fisher's fire affronts the night. 

Lovely as loved ! toward that smiling shore 

Bear we our household gods to fix for evermore. 

It looks a dimple on the face of earth, 

The seal of beauty and the shrine of mirth, 

Nature is delicate and graceful there, 

The place's genius feminine and fair : 

The winds are awed, nor dare to breathe aloud, 

The air seems never to have borne a cloud, 

Save where volcanoes send to heaven their curled 

And solemn smokes, like altars of the world. 

Thrice beautiful ! to that delightful spot 

Carry our married hearts, and be all pain forgot. 

There Art, too, showers, when Nature's beauty palls, 

Her sculptured marbles and her pictured walls ; 

And there are forms in which they both conspire 

To whisper themes that know not how to tire ; 

The speaking ruins in that gentle clime 

Have but been hallowed by the hand of time, 

And each can mutely prompt some thought of flame — 

The meanest stone is not without a name 

Then come, beloved ! hasten o'er the sea 

To build our happy hearth in blooming Italy. 



cccxv. 
SONG OF THE STARS.— W. C. Bryant. 

When the radiant morn of creation broke, 

And the world in the smile of God awoke, 

And the empty realms of darkness and death 

Were moved through their depths by His mighty breath, 



sterling's southern orator. 413 

And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame 

Froip. the void abyss by myriads came, 

In the joy of youth, as they ^arted away 

Through the widening wastes of space to play, 

Their silver voices in chorus rang ; 

And this was the song the bright ones sang : 

" Away, away ! through the wide, wide sky — 
The fair blue fields that before us lie — 
Each sun, with the worlds that round us roll, 
Each planet, poised on her turning pole, 
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, 
And her waters that lie like fluid light. 

" For the Source of glory uncovers his face, 
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space ; 
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides 
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides. 
Lo ! yonder the living splendors play : 
Away, on our joyous path away ! 

" Look, look ! through our glittering ranks afar, 

In the infinite azure, star after star, 

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass ! 

How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass ! 

And the path of the gentle winds is seen, 

Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean, 

" And see, where the brighter day-beams pour, 
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower ; 
And the morn and the eve, with their pomp and hues, 
Shift o'er the bright planets, and shed their dews ; 
And, 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground, 
With her shadowy cone, the night goes round. 

c< Away, away ! — in our blossoming bowers, 
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours, 
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, 
See, love is brooding, and life is born, 
And breathing myriads are breaking from night, 
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light. 



414 sterling's southern orator. 

" Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, 
To weave the dance that measures the years : 
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent 
To the furthest wall of the firmament — 
The boundless visible smile of Him, 
To the veil of whose brow our lamps are dim." 



cccxvi. 

THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.— Mrs. Sigottcney. 

Long hast thou slept unnoted ! Nature stole 

In her soft ministry around thy bed, 

And spread her velvet coverings, violet-gemmed, 

And pearled with dews. She bade bright Summer bring 

Gifts of frankincense, with sweet song of birds; 

And Autumn cast his yellow coronet 

Down at thy feet ; and stormy Winter speak 

Hoarsely of man's neglect. 

But now we come 
To do thee homage, mother of our chief ! 
Fit homage — such as honoreth him who pays. 

Methinks we see thee, as in olden time — 
Simple in garb, majestic and serene, 
Una wed by " pomp and circumstance," in truth 
Inflexible, and with a Spartan zeal 
Repressing Vice, and making Folly grave. 

Thou didst not deem it woman's part to waste 
Life in inglorious sloth, to sport awhile 
Amid the; flowers or on the summer wave, 
Then fleet like the epbemeron away — 
Building no temple in her children's hearts, 
Save to the vanity and pride of life, 
Which she had worshipped. 

Of the might that clothed 
The " Patpr Patriae" — of the deeds that won, 
A nation's liberty and earth's applause, 



sterling's southern orator. 415 

Making Mount Vernon's tomb a Mecca haunt 
For patriot and for sage while time shall last — 
What part was thine, what thanks to thee are due, 
Who, 'mid his elements of being, wrought 
With no uncertain aim — nursing the germs 
Of godlike virtue in his infant mind ? 
We know not-^Heaven can tell ! 

Rise, noble pile, 
And show a race unborn who rests below ; 
And say to mothers* what a holy charge 
Is theirs— -with what a kingly power their love 
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind ; 
Warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow 
Good seed before the world doth sow its tares — 
Nor in their toil decline — that angel hands 
May put the sickle in, and reap for God, 
And gather to His garner. 

Te, who stand, 
With thrilling breast and kindling cheek, this morn, 
Viewing the tribute that Virginia pays 
To the blest mother of her glorious chief; 
Ye, w^hose last thought upon your nightly couch, 
Whose first at waking, is your cradled son — 
What though no dazzling hope aspires to rear 
A second Washington — or leave your name 
Wrought out in marble with your country's tears 
Of deathless gratitude ; yet may ye raise 
A monument above the stars — a soul 
Led by your teachings and your prayers to God. 



CCCXVII, 
ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA.— Gen. W. H. Lytle. 

I am dying, Egypt, dying, 

Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast, 

And the dark Plutonian shadows 
Gather on the evening blast. 



416 sterling's southern orator. 

Let thine arm, O Queen ! support m 
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear — 

Hearken to the great heart secrets 
Thou, and thou alone, must hear. 

Though my scarred and veteran legions 

Bear their eagles high no more, 
Though my wrecked and scattered galleys 

Strew dark Actium's fatal shore, 
Though no glittering guards surround me 

Prompt to do their master's will, 
I must perish like a Roman, 

Die the great Triumvir still. 

Let not Caesar's servile minions 

Mock the lion thus laid low ; 
5 Twas no foeman's hand that felled him, 

'Twas his own that struck the blow. 
Dead ! then pillow on thy bosom, 

Ere his star shall lose its ray, 
Him who, drunk with thy caresses, 

Madly flung a world away. 

Should the base plebeian rabble 

Dare assail my fame at Rome, 
Where the noble spouse Octavia 

Keeps within her widowed home, 
Seek her ; say the gods have told me — 

Altars — augurs — circling wings— 
That her blood, with mine commingled, 

Yet shall mount the throne of kings. 

And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian, 

Glorious sorceress of the Nile, 
Light the path to Stygian horrors 

With the splendors of thy smile ; 
Give the Caesar crowns and arches, 

Let his brow the laurel twine — 
I can scorn the Senate's triumph 

Triumphing in love like thine. 
Ti 
A . I am dying, Egypt, dying — 

Hark ! the insulting foeman's cry. 



sterling's southern orator. 417 

They are coming ! quick ! my falchion ! 

Let me front them ere I die ! 
Ah, no more amid the battle 

Shall my heart exulting swell ! 
Isis and Osiris guard thee, 

Cleopatra! Rome! farewell! 



| CCCXVIII. 

HUGH MILLER.— St. George Tucker. 

Oh, 'tis a noble sight to see the mint! 
Rending the iron fetters that would bind — 
Like Samson, straining every nerve to be 
A victim with his conquerors, or free ! 

Read the sad story of Cromarty's son 
Who perished e'er his glorious race was run : 
'Twas his to vindicate the heavenly word, 
And turn on error's self her boasted sword ; 
To bring to man, like Moses from the mount, 
Tables of stone, and read their strange account, 
And find upon the granite and the clod 
The footprints of the true and only God. 

'Tis thus, though error, like the cloud of even, 
May for a moment veil the face of heaven, 
At length, illumined, by the radiance pure, 
It gilds the glory that it would obscure. 

No need of storied monument or bust 
To tell where sleeps the noble Miller's dust ; 
A prouder stone perpetuates his name, 
A nobler epitaph records his fame ; 
Where'er the rocky volume spreads its page, 
Or fossil letters teach the world her age, 
Where'er the sea has left her trail of shells, 
Or proud Geology her story tells, 
Fair Science finds his name upon the stone, 
And proudly points to Miller as her son. 



418 sterling's southern orator. 

Then tell me not that he is only great 
Who rides the battle or who rules the state ; 
Science presents a chaplet purer far 
Than civic crown or laurel wreath of war. 
He, who to man's advancement bends his mind, 
And is the benefactor of his kind, 
Builds for himself a more exalted fame, 
And myriads bless who do not know his name. 



cccxix. 

DEATH OF DR. E. K. KANE.— John Esten Cooke. 

Wha*t plumes are these ? 
Sad mourners sweeping like the wings of night 

Over the dark waves of the wide Balize, 
. Where the great waters sink into the main? 

What wail of pain 
Strikes the bent ear — what sombre sight 

Looms on the waters, where the ocean breeze 
Ripples the sad, deep seas? 
Well, rest is sweet ! 
The low drums beat, 
The waters waft their burden to the shore : 

The sobs and echoing feet 
Of thousands mingle with the cannon's roar : 
But he is still — his victories are o'er, 
The still white face will fill with joyous pride no more ! 
So, take our sailor ! 'Twas a bitter cup 
Held to his lips by One who rules us all, 
Thus in the flush of youth and fame to fall. 
Hear the low moan of muffled drums ! 
And bugles wailing in the ears of night ! 
This is Elisha Kane, 
Victor in more than human wars, 
The noblest of our noble tars, 
The young, bright champion who, not in vain, 
Nor led by sordid gain, 

But kindling with heroic pride 
And calm disdain 
Of danger, when a brother sailor called, ■ 

Braved the stern winter unappalled — 



sterling's southern orator. 419 

Vexed with his keel the far mysterious main, 

The Arctic wide — 
To come at last, his conflicts o'er, 

His labor done, 
A wounded hero to the Southern shore, 
Where, calm as sinks the splendid tropic sun, 
He in his glory died ! 
And thus the hero comes 
With the deep thunder of the muffled drums — 
Thus under ebon plumes, 
Dim plumes that sweep 
Like vultures fluttering o'er a place of tombs, 
Sleeping his final sleep — 
Thus is it that the bravest of our tars 
Comes sailing from the deep ! 
So ! let the muffled drums 
Herald the warrior as he comes ! 
The wild, sad bugles chaunt a nation's loss ! 
The loss of one who on the Spanish plain 
As in the dark floes of the Northern main 
Was ever foremost in his country's wars ! 
A nation's loss ! 
The loss of one who, after cruel pain, 

After he bore our banner to the stars, 
Under the chill Bear and the glittering Wain, 
Came, fainting in the conflict, to lie down — 

A warrior overthrown — 
Beneath the bright stars of the Southern Cross ! 



cccxx. 
DEITY.— So. Lit. Messenger. 



Pause, O mortal pilgrim ! pressing with restless footsteps 

Onward through light and shadow, unknowing aught of thy 
journey — 

Pause to contemplate the glory of Him, Supreme and Om- 
niscient, 

Whose works declare Him Creator; whose goodness de- 
clares Him Father. 

Sweet as the dews of Hermon is the thought of heaven and 
angels, 



420 sterling's southern orator. 

Communings with the unseen are the oases of life's desert. 

Ere He leaned o'er the void of chaos with mighty hand up- 
lifted, 

And showered like drops of amber the worlds down the in- 
finite spaces, 

Thy soul in His thought existed, His will ordained thy being, 

And ages smiled through the silence and echoed in music, 
The Father ! 

But a drop to the mighty ocean, a star to worlds unnum- 
bered, 

A rose to a boundless Eden, is our knowledge of Him, the 
Eternal. 

He hath written His name on each sunbeam, on cloud and 
rainbow and blossom, 

And the voice of the wave and zephyr murmur its music 
forever. 

like the sweets of the scented lily inwove with its fragrant 
whiteness, 

Or the radiant gleam of jewels that clings to each scattered 
fragment, 

His Spirit pervades all nature, its life and inseparate essence. 

As the heaven stretcheth about us its tent of delicate azure 

From the verge of the misty horizon to fathomless depths 
of ether, 

Thus ever above and beyond us, yet bending down to our 
weakness, 

Enfolding us all in its beauty, is His calm, unsearchable 
Presence ! 

As the sunlight turns for our footsteps the dust to a visible 
glory, 

Twines buds on the thorny hedges, and gems with the 
showering rain-drops , 

Even so, to each trusting spirit, the manifest love of the 
Father 

Wakes blossoms for life's drearer deserts, and edges with 
gold the shadows, 

And turns the tears of sorrow to beauteous pearls immortal. 

None watcheth the changes of Nature without some meas- 
ure of worship — 

Even the delicate snow -flake, on. the page of its dainty 
whiteness, 

Bears record of God as surely as the shine of ancient Arctu- 
rus. 



stealing's southern orator. 421 

The heart observant of beauty yields tribute by contempla- 
tion, 

And the lip that praiseth the daisy unconscious hath blessed 
its Maker. 

In the bl^sh of rosy morning, when she leans with her yel- 
low tresses 

Down o'er the brow of the mountain, and twines their gold 
with the shadows ; 

In the deepened glory of noontide when calm pervadeth all 
nature, 

And Earth, like a child aweary, seems dreaming amid her 
flowers ; 

When Day with her fading roses lies dead in the arms of 
Twilight, 

While shadows gather like mourners, and stars throng swift 
like angels ; 

In the solemn hush of the midnight, through changes of time 
or season, 

Let thy soul acknowledge His presence who rules in the 
heaven of heavens. 

Majestic beyond all language are His visible works and 
wonders ; 

Yet these are the alphabet only to the volume Jehovah hath 
written. 

Pause then, O mortal nilgrim. ! let thy spirit adore Him un- 
ceasing — 

Let it lie with the daisies in meekness, yet soar to the Throne 
in devotion. 

Praise for His infinite Wisdom that teacheth all ages know- 
ledge — 

Praise for His Will Supreme that guideth the star and the 
rose-leaf; 

Praise for His wondrous Omniscience that readeth the soul's 
recesses, 

Its doubt, and sin, and sorrow ; its pain and voiceless con- 
trition ; 

Praise for His boundless Compassion that clasps a world to 
His bosom- ■ 

Praise for His love unfathomed that knows no shadow of 
turning — 

Praise for the grandeur of Being, in that thou art made in 
His linage ! 



422 sterling's southern orator 

cccxxi. 

THE WAYSIDE CROSS ON THE ALPS.— W. T. Wallis. 

On the Swiss mountains — when I wandered there — 

In the wild, awful passes all alone, 
A little cross of iron, cold and bare, 

Rose oft, before me, from some wayside stone. 
Strange, uncouth names they bore — a holy sign 

Traced by rude hands upon a rustic scroll, 
And, blotted by the snows, a piteous line, 

Begging our prayers for the poor sleeper's soul. 

Some traveller it was, perchance, whose doom 

The torrent or the avalanche had sped ; 
Mayhap was buried there some peasant, w T hom 

The hunted chamois o'er the cliff had led ; 
His simple thoughts had never crossed the sea, 

From whose far borders to his grave I came : 
Yet, as a brother, called he unto me, 

And my heart's echo gave him back the name ! 

Peace to thy spirit, Brother ! I had felt 

The quick'ning of the blood that wanderers feel 
At thought of home and country. I had knelt 

At altars where the nations came to kneel ; 
But knew I never in its depth — till when 

Thy lonely shrine besought me for my prayer — 
The sense of kindred with all sons of men — 

One love, one hope, God's pity everywhere ! 

Thus from its scroll, thou gentle Christmas-tide, 

Thy cross— uplifted o'er the wastes of time — 
Speaks to earth's pilgrims, in His name who died, 

Good- will and peace and brotherhood sublime ! 
And, unto them that hail thee, chiefly worth 

Are the glad wreaths thou twinest round the year,' 
For that thou bidd'st our human hearts go forth, .. 

Wherever love can warm or kindness cheer. 

Up the bleak heights of daily tdil we press, 
Too busy with our journey and our load, 



STERLING'S SOUTHEKtf ORATOR. 423 

To heed the lmrried grasp, the brief caress, 
The brother fainting on that weary road. 

Then, welcome be the hours and thoughts and things, 
That win us from ourselves a little while, 

To that sweet human fellowship, which brings 
The only human joy unstained of guile ! 



CCCXXII. 
SPRING TIME.— By Rev. John C. M'Cabe. 

There's dew on the leaf and bright stars in the sky, 
And the winds woo the sweet bursting flowers ; 
The May moon looks forth with a half-dreaming eye 
On this beautiful green earth of ours. 
The music of waves gently breaks on the ear, 
And the night bird hymns softly his strain 
To his wild serenade to his mistress so dear, 
And sweet echo repeats it again. 

5 Tis morn ; and the breeze down the valley is heard, 

As it wanders the flowers among ; 

The hedge seeems alive as bird answers to bird, 

In gushes of beautiful song. 

The forest looks glad, as the tall nodding trees, 

Like an army of Robin Hood's men, 

With Lincoln green coats, wave their arms to the breeze, 

And whisper, " Sweet Spring's come again !" 

It has come ! In its smiles see all nature rejoice ! 

It has come ! on the flower-gemmed hill 

Its footsteps are heard, and its musical voice 

May be caught in the murmuring rill. 

It has come ! o'er the earth waves its glorious wing ! 

And Thy name, Gracious Father, we praise, 

That the beauty, the gladness, the brightness of spring 

Are rich blessings to gladden our days. 

But spring time is transient — the summer's hot breath 
Will dry up the rivulet's flow ; 



424 sterling's southern orator. 

And autumn will follow, that season of death 

To forest and flowers that blow ; 

And dirge-chaunting winter above them shall moan, 

As she wraps them in shrouds cold and white, 

And the winds sing their requiem in low mournful tone, 

As they march through the valleys by night. 

But that sleep shall be broken ! bright spring shall again 

Gently breathe o'er the slumberer's dream ; 

Her voice shall break forth from the hill and the plain, 

And be heard in the song of the stream. 

jSo the righteous may slumber — God watches their dust, 

O'er their cold graves the tempests may break, 

Yet their sleep is the sleep of the holy and just, 

And they shall in beauty awake ! 



CCCXXIII. 

MY HOME IS THE WORLD.— Thomas H. Bayly. 

Speed, speed, my fleet vessel ! the shore is in sight, 
The breezes are fair, we shall anchor to-night. 
To-morrow, at sunrise, once more I shall stand 
On the sea-beaten shore of my dear native land. 

Ah ! why does despondency weigh down my heart ? 
Such thoughts are for friends who reluctantly part ; 
I come from an exile of twenty long years — 
Yet I gaze on my country through fast falling tears. 

I see the hills purple with bells of the heath, 
And my own happy valley that nestles beneath, 
And the fragrant white blossoms spread over the thorn 
That grows near the cottage in which I was born. 

It cannot be changed — no, the clematis climbs 
O'er the gay little porch, as it did in old times ; 
And the seat where my father reclined is still there — 
But where is my father ? — oh, answer me, where ? 



sterling's southern orator. 425 

My mother's own casement, the chamber she loved, 

Is there — overlooking the lawn where I roved ; 

She thoughtfully sat with her hand o'er her brow, 

As she watched her young darling : ah, where is she now ? 

And there is my poor sister's garden : how wild 
Were the innocent sports of that beautiful child ! 
Her voice had a spell in its musical tone, 
And her cheeks were like roses : ah, where is she gone ? 

No father reclines in the clematis seat ! 

No mother looks forth from the shaded retreat ! 

No sister is there, stealing slyly away, 

Till the half-suppressed laughter betrayed where she lay ! 

How oft in my exile, when kind friends were near, 
I've slighted their kindness, and sighed to be here ! 
How oft have I said, " Could I once again see 
That sweet little valley, how blest should I be !" 

How blest — oh, it is not a valley like this, 

That unaided can realize visions of bliss ; 

For voices I listen ; and then I look round 

For the light steps that used to trip after the sound. 

But see ! this green path : I remember it well — 
'Tis the way to the church — hark the toll of the bell ! 
Oh, oft, in my boyhood, a truant I've strayed 
To yonder dark yew-tree, and slept in its shade. 

But surely the pathway is narrower now ! 

No smooth place is left 'neath the dark yew-tree bough ! 

O'er tablets inscribed with sad records I tread, 

And the home I have sought — is the home of the dead ! 

And was it to this I looked forward so long, 
And shrank from the sweetness of Italy's song ? 
And turned from the dance of the dark girl of Spain ? 
And wept for my country again and again ? 

And was it for this to my casement I crept 

To gaze on the deep when I dreamed as I slept ? 



426 sterling's southern orator. 

To think of fond meetings, the welcome, the kiss, 
The friendly hand's pressure ! ah, was it for this ? 

When those who so long have been absent, return 
To the scenes of their childhood, it is but to mourn ; 
Wounds open afresh that time nearly had healed, 
And the ills of a life at one glance are revealed. 

Speed, speed, my fleet vessel ! the tempest may rave- 
There's a calm for my heart in the dash of the wave. 
Speed, speed, my fleet vessel ! the sails are unfurled ; 
Oh. ask me not whither — my home is the world ! 



cccxxiv. 

PILGRIMAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS FROM FRANCE TO 
SOUTH-CAROLINA.— W. T. Grayson. 

Sad the long look the parting exile gave 

To France receding on the rising wave ! 

Her daisied meads shall smile for him no more, 

Her orchards furnish no autumnal store. 

With memory's eye alone the wanderer sees 

The vine-clad hills, the old familiar trees, 

The castled steep, the noon-clay village shade, 

The trim quaint garden where his childhood played; 

No more he joins the labor of the fields, 

Or shares the joy the merry vintage yields ; 

Gone are the valley homes by sparkling streams, 

That long shall murmur in the exile's dreams ; 

And temples where his sires were wont to pray 

With stern Farel and chivalrous Mornay — 

Scenes with long-treasured memories richly fraught. 

Where Sully counselled, where Coligni fought, 

And Henri's meteor plume in battle shone, 

A beacon light to victory and a throne. 

These all are lost, but, smiling in the West, 

Hope, still alluring, calms the anxious breast, 

And dimly rising through the landward haze, 

New forms of beauty court the wistful gaze : 



.sterling's southern orator. 427 

The level line of strand that brightly shines 
Between the rippling waves and dusky pines ; 
A shelving beach that sandy hillocks bound, 
With clumps of palm and fragrant myrtle crowned ; 
Low shores with margins broad of marshy green, 
Bright winding streams the grassy wastes between ; 
Wood-crested islands that o'erlook the main 
Like dark hills rising on a verdant plain ; 
Trees of new beauty, climbing to the skies, 
With various verdure, meet his wondering eyes ; 
Gigantic oaks, the monarchs of the wood, 
Whose stooping branches sweep the rising flood, 
And, robed in solemn draperies of moss, 
To stormy winds their proud defiance toss ; 
Magnolias bright with glossy leaves and flowers, 
Fragrant as Eden in its happiest hours ; 
The gloomy cypress towering to the skies, 
The maple loveliest in autumnal dyes, 
The palm armorial with its tufted head, 
Vines over all in wide luxuriance spread, 
And columned pines, a mystic wood, he sees, 
That sigh and whisper to the passing breeze. 



cccxxv. 

GREECE.— Estelle A. Lewis. 

Shrine of the gods ! mine own eternal Greece, 

When shall thy weeds be doffed — thy mourning cease ? 

Thy gyves that bind thy beauty rent in twain, 

And thou be living, breathing Greece again ? 

Grave of the mighty ! hero, poet, sage, 

Whose deeds are guiding stars to every age ! 

Land unsurpassed in glory or despair, 

Still in thy desolation thou art fair. 

Low in sepulchral dust lies Pallas' shrine, 

Low in sepulchral dust thy fanes divine, 

And all thy visible self: yet o'er thy clay 

Soul beauty lingers, hallowing decay. 



428 sterling's southern orator. 

Not all the ills that war entailed on thee, 
Not all the blood that stained Thermopylae, 
Not all the desolation traitors wrought, 
Not all the woe and want invaders brought, 
Not all the tears that slavery could wring 
From out thy heart of patient suffering, 
Not all that drapes thy loveliness in night, 
Can quench thy spirit's never-dying light ; 
But, hovering o'er the last of gods enshrined, 
It beams a beacon to the march of mind, 
An oasis to sage and bard forlorn, 
A guiding star to centuries unborn. 

For thee I mourn — thy blood is in my veins — 

To thee by consanguinity's strong chains 

I'm bound, and fain would die to make thee free; 

But, oh, there is no liberty for thee ! 

Not all the wisdom of thy greatest one, 

Not all the bravery of Thetis' proud son, 

Not all the weight of Phoebus' ire, 

Not all the magic of the Athenian's lyre, 

Can ever bid thy tears or mourning cease, 

Or rend one gyve that binds thee, lovely Greece. 

Where Corinth weeps beside Lepanto's deep, 

Her palaces in desolation sleep, 

Seated till dawn on moonlit columns, I 

Have sought to probe eternal Destiny ! 

I've roamed, fair Hellas, o'er thy battle-plains, 

And stood within Apollo's ruined fanes, 

Invoked the spirits of the past to wake, 

Assist with swords of fire thy chains to break ; 

But only from the hollow sepulchres, 

Murmured, " Eternal slavery is hers !" 

And on thy bosom I have laid my head 

And poured my soul out — tears of lava shed ; 

Before thy desecrated altars knelt, 

To calmer feelings felt my sorrows melt, 

And gladly with thee would have made my home; 

But pride and hate impelled me o'er the foam, 

To distant lands and seas unknown to roam. 



sterling's southern orator. 429 

CCCXXVI. 
CHARACTER OF HENRY CLAY.— J. R. Underwood. 

Mr. President, I have availed myself of Doctor Johnson's 
paraphrase of the epitaph on Thomas Harmer, with a few al- 
terations and additions, to express in borrowed verse my ad- 
miration for the life and character of Mr. Clay, and, with this 
heart-tribute to the memory of my illustrious colleague, I 
conclude my remarks : 

Born when Freedom her stripes and stars unfurled, 
When Revolution shook the startled world — 
Heroes and sages taught his brilliant mind 
To know and love the rights of all mankind. 
" In life's first bloom his public toils began, 
At once commenced the senator and man ; 
In business dext'rous, weighty in debate, 
Near fifty years he labored for the state. 
In every speech persuasive wisdom flowed, 
In every act refulgent virtue glowed ; 
Suspended faction ceased from rage and strife, 
To hear his eloquence and praise his life. 
Resistless merit fixed the members' choice, 
Who hailed him Speaker with united voice." 
His talents ripening with advancing years, 
His wisdom growing with his public cares ; 
A chosen envoy, war's dark horrors cease, 
The tides of carnage turn to streams of peace; 
Conflicting principles, internal strife, 
Tariff and slavery, disunion rife, 
All are compromised by his great hand, 
And beams of joy illuminate the land: 
Patriot, Christian, husband, father, friend, 
Thy work of life achieved a glorious end ! 



430 sterling's southern orator. 



cccxxvii. 



THE WANTS OF MAN.— J. Q. Adams. 

:,i Man wants but little here below, 

Nor wants that little long ;" 
'Tis not with me exactly so, 

But 'tis so in the song. 
My wants are many, and, if told, 

Would muster many a score ; 
And were each wish a mint of gold, 

I still should long for more. 

What first I want is daily bread, 

And canvass-backs and wine ; 
And all the realms of nature spread 

Before me when I dine. 
Four courses scarcely can provide 

My appetite to quell, 
With four choice cooks from France, beside, 

To dress my dinner well. 

What next I want, at heavy cost, 

Is elegant attire : 
Black sable furs for winter's frost, 

And silks for summer's fire, 
And cashmere shawls, and Brussels lace 

My bosom's front to deck, 
And diamond rings my hands to grace, 

And rubies for my neck. 

And then I want a mansion fair, 

A dwelling-house, in style, 
Four stories high, for wholesome air — 

A massive marble pile ; 
With halls for banquets and for balls, 

All furnished rich and fine ; 
With stabled studs in fifty stalls, 

And cellars for my wine. 



sterling's southern orator. 431 

I want a garden and a park, 

My dwelling to surround — 
A thousand acres, (bless the mark !) 

With walls encompassed round — 
Where flocks may range and herds may low, 

And kids and lambkins play, 
And flowers and fruits commingled grow, 

All Eden to display. 



• 



I want, when summer's foliage falls, 

And autumn strips the trees, 
A house within the city's walls, 

For comfort and for ease. 
But here, as space is somewhat scant, 

And acres somewhat rare, 
My house in town I only want 

To occupy — a square. 

I want a steward, butler, cooks, 

A coachman, footman, grooms, 
A library of well-bound books, 

And picture-garnished rooms ; 
Correggios, Magdalen, and Night, 

The matron of the chair ; 
Guido's fleet coursers in their flight, 

And Claudes at least a pair. 

I want a cabinet profuse 

Of medals, coins, and gems ; 
A printing-press, for private use, 

Of fifty thousand ems ; 
And plants, and minerals, and shells ! 

Worms, insects, fishes, birds ! 
And every beast on earth that dwells, 

In solitude or herds. 



432 sterling's southern orator. 

cccxxviii. 

THE SAME— Continued. 

I wantt a board of burnished plate, 

Of silver and of gold ! 
Tureens of twenty pounds in weight, 

With sculpture's richest mould ; 
Plateaus, with chandeliers and lamps, 

Plates, dishes — all the same ; 
And porcelain vases, with the stamps 

Of Sevres, Angouleme, 

And maples, of fair glossy stain, 

Must form my chamber doors, 
And carpets of the Wilton grain 

Must cover all my floor ; 
My walls, with tapestry bedecked, 

Must never be outdone ; 
And damask curtains must protect 

Their colors from the sun. 



And mirrors of the largest pane 

From Venice must be brought ; 
And sandal-wood, and bamboo cane, 

For chains and tables bought : 
On all the mantel-pieces, clocks 

Of thrice-gilt bronze must stand, 
And screens of ebony and box 

Invite the stranger's hand. 

I want (who does not want ?) a wife, 

Affectionate and fair, 
To solace all the woes of life, 

And all its joys to share ; 
Of temper sweet, of yielding will, 

Of firm yet placid mind, 
With all my faults to love me still, 

With sentiment refined. 






sterling's southern orator. 433 

And as Time's car incessant runs, 

And Fortune fills my store, 
I want of daughters and of sons 

From eight to half a score ; 
I want (alas ! can mortal dare 

Such bliss on earth to crave ?) 
That all the girls be chaste and fair — 

The boys, all wise and brave. 

And when my bosom's darling sings, 

With melody divine, 
A pedal harp of many strings 

Must with her voice combine. 
A piano exquisitely wrought 

Must open stand, apart, 
That all my daughters may be taught 

To win the stranger's heart. 

My wife and daughters will desire 

Refreshment from perfumes, 
Cosmetics for the skin require, 

And artificial blooms. 
The civet fragrance shall dispense 

And treasured sweets return ; 
Cologne revive the flagging sense, 

And smoking amber burn. 

And when at night my weary head 

Begins to droop and doze, 
A southern chamber holds my bed, 

For nature's soft repose ; 
With blankets, counterpanes, and sheet, 

Mattress, and bed of down, 
And comfortables for my feet, 

And pillows for my crown. 
19 



434: sterling's southern orator, 

cccxxix. 

THE SAME— Continued. 

I want a warm and faithful friend 

To cheer the adverse hour, 
Who ne'er to flatter will descend, 

Or bend the knee to power ; 
A friend to chide me when I'm wrong, 

My inmost soul to see ; 
And that my friendship prove as strong 

For him as his for me. 

I want a kind and tender heart, 

For others' wants to feel ; 
A soul secure from fortune's dart, 

And bosom armed with steel ; 
To bear divine chastisement's rod, 

A mingling in my plan, 
Submission to the will of God 

With charity to man. 

I want a keen, observing eye, 

An ever-listening ear, 
The truth through each disguise to spy, 

And wisdom's voice to hear ; 
A tongue to speak at virtue's need, 

In heaven's sublimest strain ; 
And lips the cause of man to plead, 

And never plead in vain. 

I want uninterrupted health 

Throughout my long career, 
And streams of never-failing wealth, 

To scatter far and near ; 
The destitute to clothe and feed, 

Free bounty to bestow ; 
Supply the helpless orphan's need, 

And soothe the widow's woe. 

I want the genius to conceive, 
The talents to unfold, 



sterling's southern orator. 435 

Designs, the vicious to retrieve, 

The virtuous to uphold ; 
Inventive power, combining skill, 

A persevering soul, 
Of human hearts to mould the will, 

And reach from pole to pole. 

I want the seals of power and place, 

The ensigns of command, 
Charged by the people's unbought grace 

To rule my native land. 
Nor crown nor sceptre would I ask 

But from my country's will, 
By day, by night, to ply the task 

Her cup of bliss to fill. 

I want the voice of honest praise 

To follow me behind, 
And to be thought in future days 

The friend of human kind; 
That after ages, as they rise, 

Exulting may proclaim, 
In choral union to the skies, 
• Their blessings on my name. 

These are the wants of mortal man ; 

I cannot want them long ; 
For life itself is but a span 

And earthly bliss a song. 
My last great want, absorbing all, 

Is, when beneath the sod, 
And summoned to my final call, 

The mercy of my God. 

And oh, while circles in my veins 

Of life the purple stream, 
And yet a fragment small remains 

Of nature's transient dream, 
My soul, in humble hope unscared, 

Forget not thou to pray 
That this thy want may be prepared 

To meet the Judgment Day, 



436 sterling's southern orator. 

ccoxxx. 

THE MET-TA-WEE*— Emeline S. Smith. 

Long hours we had journeyed o'er meadow and mountain : 

The sunbeams were fervid, the way-side was drear ; 
And our souls felt athirst for some pure, sparkling fountain, 

Whose wave might refresh, and whose beauty might cheer. 
Overwearied and faint, in the twilight's soft splendor 

We happily chanced a lone valley to see, 
Through whose tranquil breast, like a thought pure and 
tender, 

Flowed tunefully onward the bright Met-ta-wee. 

Oh, never, methinks, a more beautiful vision 

Appeared to the eyes of the weary and worn! 
'Twas a fairy oasis— a spot more Elysian, 

Than those that 'mid sands of the desert are born. 
The birds hovering o'er it, poised long on light pinions, 

Enamored their forms in that mirror to see ; 
And winds, rushing forth from their mystic dominions, 

Breathed low as they crept by the calm Met-ta-wee. 

Cloud-figures, angelic, hung over its bosom ; 

Tall willows like lovers bent low at its side ; 
'Twas kissed o'er and o'er by each rosy-lipped blossom 

That leaned in mute tenderness down to its tide. 
How fondly we lingered to gaze on that river! 

To quaff its pure nectar — for all flowing free — 
How weariness fled, and how Care's fitful fever 

Was soothed by the charms of the bright Met-ta-wee. 

That moment so dear, and that scene so beguiling, 

Come back oftentimes to my fancy again : 
I see, o'er the landscape, a soft sunset smiling ; 

I see the green hills and the flower-vestured plain. 

* This pretty Indian name is given to a beautiful little stream that 
traces its devious course through a valley in the northern part of the 
State of New-York. 






sterling's southern orator. 437 

The pure azure sky and the first star of Even, 

Beaming o'er me, in holiest beauty I see, 
And lo ! as I gaze, there's another bright heaven 

Far down in the breast of the calm Met-ta-wee. 

Time speeds on his pathway — and still, as he's flying, 

Our joy-lighted moments he shakes from his glass; 
But the brightest and dearest emit, while they're dying, 

A beam that illumines the rest as they pass. 
These sparks of enjoyment are Memory's treasure ; 

She hoards them — she keeps them from dark changes 
free — 
Oh, long may she cherish the sweet dream of pleasure 

We dreamed on the banks of the bright Met-ta-wee. 



cocxxxi. 
COUSINS.— Winthrop M. Praed. 

Had you ever a Cousin, Tom ? 

Did your cousin happen to sing? 
Sisters we've all by the dozen, Tom, 

But a cousin's a different thing ; 
And you'd find, if you ever had kissed her, Tom, 

(But let this be a secret between us,) 
That your lips would have been in a blister, Tom, 

For they are not of the sister genus. 

There is something, Tom, in a sister's Up, 

When you give her a good-night kiss, 
That savors so much of relationship, 

That nothing occurs amiss ; 
But a cousin's lip if you once unite 

With yours, in the quietest way, 
Instead of sleeping a wink that night, 

You'll be dreaming the following day. 

And people think it no harm, Tom, 

With a cousin to hear you talk; 
And no one feels any alarm, Tom, 

At a quiet, cousinly walk ; 



438 sterling's southern orator. 

But, Tom, you'll soon find what I happen to know, 
That such w r alks often go into straying, 

And the voices of cousins are sometimes so low, 
Heaven only knows what you'll be saying ! 



And then there happened so often, Tom, 

Soft pressures of hands and fingers, 
And looks that were moulded to soften, Tom, 

And tones on which memory lingers ; 
That long ere the walk is half over, those strings 

Of your heart are all put in play, 
By the voice of those fair, demi- sisterly things, 

In not quite the most brotherly way. 

And the song of a sister may bring to you, Tom, 

Such tones as the angels woo, 
But I fear if your cousin should sing to you, Tom, 

You'll take her for an angel, too ; 
For so curious a note is that note of theirs, 

That you'll fancy the voice that gave it 
Has been all the while singing the national airs, 

Instead of the Psalms of David. 



I once had a cousin who sung, Tom, 

And her name may be nameless now, 
But the sound of those songs is still young, Tom, 

Though we are no longer so : 
'Tis folly to dream of a bower of green 

When there is not a leaf on the tree ; 
But 'twixt walking and singing, that cousin has been, 

God forgive her ! the ruin of me. 

And now I care naught for society, Tom, 

And lead a most anchorite life, 
For I've loved myself into sobriety, Tom, 

And out of the wish for a wife ; 
But oh, if I said but half what I might say, 

So sad were the lesson 'twould give, 
That 'twould keep you from loving for many a day, 

And from cousins — as long as you live. 



sterling's southern orator. 439 

cccxxxii. 
VIRGINIA.— Makia G. Buchanan. 

Virginia ! linked with thy pure name 

Are records of bright deeds ; 
The soul with answering thoughts of flame 

Glows while the scroll she reads; 
Along the line her vision runs, 
Dazzling with triumphs of thy sons, 
Who, brave as lions in the field, 

Are lite the dove in lady's bower; 
They never know what 'tis to yields 

Save to Love's sovereign power ; 
And then the eye, which in the storm 

Of battle kindled like the sun, 
Now falls as soft on beauty's form, 

As his, when his proud pathway run, 
With softest light its glance is turned 
Upon the scenes which with'ring burned 
Beneath his mid-day glow. 

Ah ! yes, the bright Spirit of Chivalry, 
Which poured its light on the ages dark, 
Which rode o'er their billows triumphantly, 

(Enshrined in its wondrous bark, 
Along the dark waters it fearlessly bore 
The golden freight of its priceless store, 

Virtues undying spark, 
It bad rescued from 'mid the ashes cold 
Of ignorance, error, and ills untold,) 
No sooner had heard of thy new-found land 
Than he steered for the sun-bright shore, 
And moored his bark on the Virgin strand, 
And gave thee that golden store ! 

And linked, Virginia, with thy name 

Are thoughts of festal glee ; 
How clearly the heart-warming flame 

Of Hospitality 
In thy old manor-houses shone — 

'Twas like a beacon star — 
The weary traveller wand'ring lone 

Glad hailed it from afar : 



44:0 sterling's southern orator. 

And still upon thy hearths it burns 

With lustre as of old ; 
Still to its light the traveller turns, 
* Amid the night-winds cold, 
And never finds its guiding ray- 
Has shone to wilder or betray ! 

Virginia ! Yes, thou art indeed 

A Gem of clearest light, 
How well-earned is thy glorious meed, 

Brightest where all are bright ! 
Rich fruitage of the deathless seed 
Which Virtue, Genius, Valor cast 
Forth 'mid thy vales and mountains vast, 

With freely generous hand ; 
And, now j when centuries have past 

Over thy honored land, 
When heard is thy unsullied name, 
Leaps up the spirit's warmest flame ! 



CCCXXXIII. 

BENEDICT ARNOLD.— W. Gilmore Simms. 

Yes, long shall our country, recalling 

The deeds thou hast done, speak thy name, 
And though from thy proud station falling, 

All shall not be lost in thy shame ! 
While she tells how thy crime had betrayed her 
To the rage of the reckless invader, 
Shall she also repeat the proud story, 
Where thy gallantry led her to glory. 

Yet, alas ! even valor redeems not 

The life once delivered to shame ; 
The hero we love, it beseems not, 

That one shadow should darken his fame ! 
lie must neither know falsehood, nor falter, 
But as pure as the fire on the altar, 
He must speed in his garments of whiteness, 
To tUe highest, from brightness to brightness. 



sterling's southern orator. 441 

Oh, the madness of soul, that, when holy, 
And proud were the deeds thou hadst done, 

Could win thee to worship so lowly 
And lose thee the green laurels won ! 

Those left on thy brow do not grace thee, 

They but show how thy treasons debase thee ; 

Yet thou might'st have gone down to the ages, 

The glory, not shame, on our pages. 

Ah ! well shall it be for our nation, 

If but one of its bright lights be gone; 
Stricken out from the height of its station, 
In the hour when most proudly it shone ! 
Thy fame as thy shame shall we cherish, 
Since they teach us how glory may perish ; 
And our young shall be tutored to name thee, 
While they loathe the foul deeds that beshame thee. 



CCOXXXIV. 

SHIPWRECK BY DRINK.— Thomas Heywood. 

This gentleman and I 
Passed but just now your next neighbor's house, 
Where, as they say, dwells one young Lionel, 
An unthrift youth ; his father now at sea : 
And there this night was held a sumptuous feast. 
In the height of their carousing, all their brains 
Warmed with the heat of wine, discourse was offered 
Of ships and storms at sea : when suddenly, 
Out of his giddy wildness, one conceives 
The room wherein they quaffed to be a pinnace, 
Moving and floating, and the confused noise 
To be the murmuring winds, gusts, mariners : 
That their unsteadfast footing did proceed 
From rocking of the vessel. This conceived, 
Each one begins to apprehend the danger, 
And to look out for safety. Fly, saith one, 
Up to the main-top, and discover. He 



442 sterling's southern orator. 

Climbs by the bed-post to the tester, there 

Reports a turbulent sea and tempest towards ; 

And wills them, if they'll save their ship and lives, 

To cast their lading overboard. At this 

All fall to work, and hoist into the street, 

As to the sea, what next came to their hand, 

Stools, tables, tressels, trenches, bedsteads, cups, 

Pots, plate, and glasses. Here a fellow whistles ; 

They take him for the boatswain : one lies struggling 

Upon the floor, as if he swam for life : 

A third takes the bass-viol for the cock-boat, 

Sits in the bellow on't, labors, and rows ; 

His oar the stick with which the fiddler played : 

A fourth bestrides his fellow, thinking to 'scape 

(As did Arion) on the dolphin's back, 

Still fumbling on a gittern. The rude multitude, 

Watching without, and gaping for the spoil 

Cast from the windows, went by th' ears about it ; 

The constable is called t' atone the broil ; 

Which done, and hearing such a noise within 

Of imminent shipwreck, enters the house, and finds them 

In this confusion : they adore his staff*, 

And think it Neptune's trident ; and that he 

Comes with his Tritons (so they called his watch) 

To calm the tempest and appease the waves: 

And at this point we left them. 



cccxxxv. 
THE WOES OF MODERN GREECE.— H. T. Farmer. 

Alas ! thy land is now a land of woe ; 
Thy muse is crowned with Druid mistletoe. 
See the lorn virgin with dishevelled hair, 
To distant climes in 'wildercd haste repair; 
Chill desolation seeks her favored bowers, 
Neglect, that mildew, blasts her cherished flowers; 
The spring may bid their foliage bloom anew, 
The night may dress them in her fairy dew ; 



sterling's southern orator. 443 

But what shall chase the winter-cloud of pain, 
And bid her early numbers breathe again ? 
What spring shall bid her mental gloom depart ? 
'Tis always winter in a broken heart. 

The aged Patriarch seeks the sea-beat strand, 
To leave — forever leave his native land ; 
No sun shall cheer him with so kind a beam, 
No fountain bless him with so pure a stream ; 
Nay, should the exile through Elysium roam, 
He leaves his heaven when he leaves his home. 
But we may deeper, darker truth unfold, 
Of matrons slaughtered, and of virgins sold, 
Of shrines polluted by barbarian rage, 
Of gray locks rifled from the head of age, 
Of pilgrims murdered, and of chiefs defied, 
Where Christians knelt, and Sparta's heroes died. 
Once more thy chiefs their glittering arms resume, 
For heaven, for vengeance, conquest or a tomb ; 
With fixed resolve to be forever free, 
Or leave all Greece one vast Thermopylae. 

Columbia, rise ! A voice comes o'er the main, 

To ask thy blessing, nor to ask in vain ; 

Stand forth in bold magnificence, and be 

For classic Greece what France was once for thee. 

So shall the gods each patriot bosom sway, * 

And make each Greek the hero of his day. 

But, should thy wisdom and thy valor stand 

On neutral ground- — oh, may thy generous hand 

Assist her hapless warriors, and repair 

Her altars, scathed by sacrilege and care ; 

Hail all her triumphs, and her ills deplore, 

Nor let old Homer's manes beg once more. 



444 steeling's southern orator. 

CCCXXXViL 

THE AMERICAN EAGLE.— -Southern Religious Telegraph. 

Bird of the cliff! thou art soaring on high; 
Thou hast swept the dense cloud from thy path in the sky ; 
Thou hast breasted the storm in thy heavenward flight. 
And fixed thy bright eye on the fountain of light; 
Thou hast braved the keen flash of the lightning in sport, 
And poised thy strong wing where the thunders resort ; 
Thou hast followed the stars in their pathways above, 
And chased the wild meteors wherever they rove. 

Bird of the forest! thou lov'st the deep shade, 

Where the oak spreads its boughs in the mountain and glade, 

Where the thick-clustered ivy encircles the pine, 

And the proud elm is wreathed by the close-clinging vine ; 

Thou hast tasted the dew of the untrodden plain, 

And followed the streams as they roll to the main ; 

Thou hast dipped thy swift wing in the feathery spray, 

Where the earth-quaking cataract roars on its w^ay. 

Bird of free skies ! thou hast sailed on the cloud, 
Where the battle raged fierce, and the cannon roared loud ; 
Thou hast swooped to the earth when the foeman was slain, 
And waved thy wide wing o'er the blood-sprinkled plain; 
Thou hast soared where the banner of freedom was borne ; 
Thou hast gazed at the far dreaded lion in scorn ; 
Thy beak has been wet in the blood of our foes, 
When the home of the bra ye has been left to repose. 

Bird of the clime in which liberty dwells, 

Nurse the free soul in thy cliff-sheltered dells ! 

Hover above the strong heart in its pride, 

Whisper of those who for freedom have died ! 

Bear up the free-nurtured spirit of man, 

Till it soar, like thine own, through its earth-bounded span, 

Waft it above, o'er the mountain and wave — 

Spread thy free wing o'er the patriot's grave. 



sterling's southern orator. 445 

cccxxxvti. 

CALHOUN.— W. Gilmore Simms. 

Nations themselves are but the monuments 
Of deathless men, whom the Divine intents 
Decree for mighty purposes. 

They rise 
Superior, by their mission from the skies, 
To thoughts of self; and, in self-sacrifice, 
Assert the race ; guide, fashion, and inform, 
Direct for conquest, gather from the storm, 
And build in strength ! 

Their powerful arms maintain 

The realm of Peace, and consecrate her reign 

By Justice, Truth, Protection. They defend 

The land that gave them being, and commend 

Her virtues to the love of other climes, 

That else had lapsed from weaknesses to crimes, 

And so, to ruin ! They foresee the fate, 

And arm against the danger ere too late ; 

Meet the assailing foeman at the wall, 

And nobly conquer, or as nobly fall. 

Their lives, devote to patriot service, teach 

How best to build the tower and man the breach ; 

Their hands, outstretched in blessing rites, have made 

The nations safe and sacred in their shade ! 



We rear our humble column to the name 
Of one who led our power and won us fame ! 
Whose wondrous genius, with Ithuriel spear, 
Hath made the crouching fiend start up in fear; 
Smote the foul reptile, even where he lay 
Coiled round our altar, poisoning still his prey ; 
Expelled the foe that threatened as a fate, 
And saved from loss the sacred shield of state ! 



446 sterling's southern orator. 

His lips spoke lightnings ! His immaculate thought 

From seraph source divinest fervors caught ; 

His fiery argument, with eagle rush, 

Spelled mightiest senates into trembling hush ; 

While the great billowy thunders, echoing still, 

With rolling surges round the Sacred Hill, 

Strike with sharp terrors into nerveless awe 

The insidious enemies of Right and Law ! 

Even to the last, still battling in the van, 

For the great truths and natural rights of man, 

He died in harness, in the thick of strife, 

His very death a triumph — like his life ! 



The great fall from us. We have need to fear, 
When voice like his no longer thrills the ear ! 
When, in the Senate, owls and mousing things 
Creep to high places which were made for wings, 
'Tis need we should do homage, and implore 
Great shoulders, such as his white mantle bore ! 
'Tis reverence brings the prophet. If we praise 
The perished virtue, and its altar raise, 
We may recall the genius, lost too soon, 
And find, 'mong other sons, a new Calhoun ! 



CCOXXXVIII. 
SHAVING.— Anonymous. 



His eye was stern and wild ; his cheek 
Was pale and cold as clay ; 

Upon his tightened lip a smile 
Of fearful meaning lay : 

He mused awhile, but not in doubt ; 

No trace of doubt was there ; 
It was the steady, solemn pause 

Of resolute despair. 



sterling's southern orator. 447 

Once more he looked upon the scroll, 

Once more its words he read ; 
Then calmly, with unflinching hand, 

Its folds before him spread. 

I saw him bare his throat — and seize 

The blue, cold-gleaming steel, 
And grimly try the tempered edge 

He was so sure to feel ! 

A sickness crept upon my heart, 

And dizzy swam my head ; 
I could not stir, I could not cry, 

I felt benumbed and dead. 

Black, icy horrors struck me dumb, 

And froze my senses o'er ; 
I closed my eyes in utter fear, 

And strove to think no more. 

Again I looked : a fearful change 

Across his face had passed : 
He seemed to rave : on cheek and lip 

A flashy foam was cast. 

He raised on high the glittering blade ; 
Then first I found a tongue : 
" Hold ! madman ! stay the frantic deed !" 
I cried, and forth I sprung : 

He heard me, but he heeded not : 

One glance around he gave : 
And ere I could arrest his hand, 

He had — begun to shave. 



448 sterling's southern orator. 

cccxxxix. 

DARKNESS.— Byron. 

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 

Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space, 

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 

Swung blind, and blackening, in the moonless air; 

Morn came and went — and came, and brought no day; 

And men forgot their passions, in the dread 

Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. 

Some lay down, 
And hid their eyes, and wept ; and some did rest 
Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smiled ; 
And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up, 
With mad disquietude, on the dull sky, 
The pall of a past world ; and then again, 
With curses, cast them down upon the dust, 
And gnashed their teeth and howled. The wild birds 

shrieked, 
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 
And flap their useless wings : the wildest brutes 
Came tame, and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 
And twined themselves among the multitude, 
Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food. 
The meager by the meager were devoured ; # 

Even dogs assailed their masters — all save one, 
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay, 
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
Lured their lank jaws ; himself sought out no food, 
But, with a piteous and perpetual moan, 
And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand 
Which answered not with a caress — he died. 

The crowd was famished by degrees ; but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 
And they were enemies; they met beside 
The dying embers of an altar- place, 






sterling's southern orator. 449 

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things, 

For an unholy usage : they raked up, 

And, shivering, scraped, with their cold, skeleton hands, 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a flame, 

Which was a mockery : then they lifted 

Their eyes, as it grew lighter, and beheld 

Each other's aspects; saw, and shrieked, and died. 

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 

Famine had written fiend. The world was void ; 

The populous and the powerful was a lump — 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless ; 

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still, 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths : 

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they dropped, 

They slept, on the abyss, without a surge : 

The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave ; 

The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 

The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 

And the clouds perished : darkness had no need 

Of aid from them ; she was the universe. 



CCCXL. 

DREAMING— NOT ACHIEVING.— So. Lit. Messenger. 

A youth sat by a river's side, 
A river running with its tide, 
Swelling swift, and swelling wide, 

In onward current to the main. 
And on its surface floated there, 
With banners waving in the air, 
Full many a fabric tall and fair, 

All floating downward to the main. 

And as he gazed with dreamy eyes, 
And saw the radiant fabrics rise, 



450 sterling's southern orator. 

With banners flaunting to the skies, 
He shook his head in bitter scorn. 
"Ha ! radiant forms, in vain ye rise, 
In vain your banners flaunt the skies, 
Your splendor dims — your glory dies — 
Ye'll never see the Immortal Morn. 

" Ye'll never bear the beating rain : 
Ye'll never reach the mighty main, 
Ye are but ' castles built in Spain :' 

Ye'll never see the Immortal Morn. 
'Tis I could build a stalwart form, 
That would outride the wintry storm, 
And, sailing ever free from harm, 

At last would see the Immortal Morn." 

And thus he wraps him in his pride, 
And lays him by that river's side, 
To wait some future fortune's tide, 

Then launch his fabric on the stream. 
But still the waters ever flow, 
The swelling tides still come and go, 
The fabrics still glide down below, 

And he still builds one in a dream. 

Year after year fast flies away, 
The sun of life hath passed mid-day, 
And weary casts a western ray, 

But he still dreams of battles won. 
Though Genius sat upon his brow, 
And lit his soul with fancy's glow, 
'Tis all in vain forever now — 

His dream is o'er — his life is done ! 

Need I tell that river's name, 

By which he lay, and dreamed of Fame, 

Until his dream became his shame ? 

That river's called the Stream of Life. 
And those fabrics floating there, 
With banners waving in the air, 
Are all the work of mental care, 

Wrought amid the world's great strife. 



sterling's southern orator. 451 

CCCXLI. 

AMBITION.— N. P. Willis. 

What is ambition ? 'Tis a glorious cheat. 

It seeks the chamber of the gifted boy, 

And lifts his humble window, and comes in. 

The narrow walls expand, and spread away 

Into a kingly palace, and the roof 

Lifts to the sky, and unseen fingers work 

The ceiling with rich blazonry, and write 

His name in burning letters over all. 

And ever as he shuts his 'wildered eyes, 

The phantom comes, and lays upon his lips 

A spell that murders sleep, and in his ear 

Whispers a deathless word, and on his brain 

Breathes a fierce thirst no waters will allay. 

He is a slave henceforth. His days are spent 

In chaining down his heart, and watching where 

To rise by human weakness. His nights 

Bring him no rest in all their blessed hours ; 

His kindred are forgotten or estranged ; 

Unhealthful fires burn constant in his eye ; 

His lip grows restless, and its smile is curled 

Half into scorn ; till the bright, fiery boy, 

That 'twas a daily blessing but to see, 

His spirit was so birdlike and so pure, 

Is frozen, in the very flush of youth, 

Into a cold, care-fretted, heartless man. 

And what is its reward ? At best, a name ! 

Praise — when the ear has grown too dull to hear; 

Gold — when the senses it should please are dead ; 

Wreaths — when the hair they cover has grown gray ; 

Fame — when the heart it should have thrilled is numb ; 

All things but love — when love is all we want : 

And close behind comes death, and ere we know 

That even these unavailing gifts are ours, 

He sends us, stripped and naked, to the grave. 



452 sterling's southern orator. 

CCCXLII. 

THE ANTHEM OF HEAVEN.— Philo Henderson. 

Through the dark realm of chaos ere the morning of Time, 
The strains of an anthem pealed onward sublime ; 
Swelling up from the harps of angels on high, 
Unechoed they swept down the dim, starless sky. 

The sun, moon, and earth, and stars were not there, 
To catch the grand strains of that heavenly air ; 
But on, ever on, through dim chaos and night, 
They bent their grand, solemn, and measureless flight. 

"When God by His word spoke in being the earth, 
Those strains, echoed back, sung in heaven its birth ; 
And sun, moon, and stars, beneath Jehovah's glance, 
In beautiful order wheeled into the dance. 

And now, where the furthest bright tremulous star, 
On the horizon's verge, drives its silvery car, 
The strains of that anthem are reechoed back 
As that star to their music pursues its bright track. 

The sky-piercing mountain, the shadowy vale, 
The cloud that unfurls its white vapory sail, 
The flower that blooms by the cataract's roar, 
And ocean along its lone desolate shore, 

Adoringly feel and respond to those tones ; 
And the proud heart of man their sweet influence owns, 
When they swell on the wings of the dark tempest's might, 
Or breathe through the calm of the weeping twilight. 

To their music in time the wide universe sweeps, 
In its grand, stately march through unlimited deeps, 
From the loveliest star to which Chaldeans prayed 
To the insect that winds his small horn in the shade. 

When the archangel's trump, with its loud pealing strain, 
Shall wake their long sleepers from mountain and plain, 









sterling's southern orator. 453 

The strains of that hymn will swell higher and higher, 
And blend with the roar of Time's funeral pyre. 

Then onward, sublimely unanswered, once more 
Through the dim, starless sky they will sweep as of yore, 
And forever bend down their long measureless flight 
Through the dim, rayless regions of chaos and night. 



CCCXLIII. 
MORNING.— J. M. Loyejoy. 



The morning is the hour of thought, and he 
Who walks her earthly paths will often find 
Himself alone with God — her purity 
So flow along the heart and brace the mind, 
That, as she doth into his being wind, 
The soul will mount with her the blue domain, 
Pass o'er the shining towers, and, unconfined, 
With angel feet roam o'er the heavenly plain, 
Pluck life's unfading flowers and truth immortal gain 

The mocking-birds begin the morning's song 
In murmurs soft and sweet, as flows the rill ; 
Now, like a holy chant, it rolls along 
Through ancient vaulted woods, increasing till 
All up and down the scale the anthems trill ; 
The lord of song in his green gallery sings, 
While o'er the vale and up the dusky hill, 
From her resounding rock, the Echo flings 
Through all her silver pipes the joy that round her rings. 

The dawn expands, and now the rolling sea 
Pours o'er the morning-star its waves of light, 
That, lingering long, and twinkling, seemed to bo 
A diamond's point, uniting day and night ; 
The trees, half gilt, that soar the pasture's height, 
Come down to hide the vale with shadows deep 
And shut the dreamy farm-house from the sight, 
Where now and then the playful breezes creep, 
To shake the drowsy elms, that ever murmuring keep. 



454 sterling's southern orator. 

O lovely morning ! lovely as the soul 
Of beauty's eye ! how sweet thy dawning ray 
Unveils thy face, till thy full glories roll 
Along the blue ; the roses all at play 
Upon thy shining bosom ; thou dost lay 
Thy ruby twinkling fingers on the dews, 
Profusely fling thy gorgeous gems away, 
While flower and shrub give back to thee thy hues, 
And glow with light and life, thy presence doth infuse. 

But half uprisen appears the glorious sun ; 
The liquid streams o'er yon smooth hill-top flow, 
Chasing the shadow, down the dark side run, 
Have passed the horse, and reached the vale below, 
Round which the river makes a silver bow ; 
The water-lilies shake their starry gold ; 
Only their modest green the alders show ; 
But there the blackbirds morning converse hold — ■ 
Hark ! how with winged words their fiery hearts unfold. 

The spirit-stirring sun ascends his throne, 
And bids the world arouse itself once more; 
Back, from his flaming front, the clouds have flown, 
And now man, bird, and insect pass before 
His beaming countenance. The old woods roar 
To nature's echoing footsteps — how she flings 
Her glowing eye to heaven — away doth soar 
To meet exultant Morning, where she springs, 
With hope upon her brow and splendor on her wings. 

The earth comes forth, in robes of grandeur drest, 
Worthy to be the day-god's bridal queen ; 
The dew, upon her dark green velvet vest, 
That looks as if a shower of gems had been. 
The deep blue sky, the far-off village sheen, 
The graceful spires that soar like shafts of light, 
The summer fruit-trees blushing o'er the green, 
Display themselves, so beautiful and bright, 
The whole enchantment seems to the beholder's sight. 



sterling's southern orator. 455 

CCCXLIV. 

WASHINGTON— FROM "ARNOLD AND ANDRE." 

George H. Calvert. 

Washington 
Doth know no other language than the one 
We speak ; and never did an English tongue 
Give voice unto a larger, wiser mind. 
You'll task your judgment vainly to point out, 
Through all this desp'rate conflict, in his plans 
A flaw, or fault in execution. He 
In spirit is unconquerable, as 
In genius perfect. Side by side I fought 
With him in that disastrous enterprise 
Where rash young Braddock fell ; and there I marked 
The vet'ran's skill contend for mastery 
With youthful courage in his wondrous deeds. 
"Well might the bloody Indian warrior pause, 
Amid his massacre confounded, and 
His baffled rifle's aim, till then unerring, 
Turn from " that tall young man," and deem in awe 
That the Great Spirit hovered over him ; 
For he, of all our mounted officers, 
Alone came out unscathed from that dread carnage 
To guard our shattered army's swift retreat. 
For years did his majestic form hold place 
Upon my mind, stamped in that perilous hour, 
In th' image of a strong-armed friend, until 
I met him next as a resistless foe. 
'Twas at the fight near Princeton. In quick march, 
Victorious o'er his van, onward we pressed ; 
When, moving with firm pace, led by the Chief 
Himself, the central force encountered us. 
One moment paused the opposing hosts — and then 
The rattling volley hid the death it bore ; 
Another — and the sudden cloud, uprolled, 
Displayed, midway between the adverse lines, 
His drawn sword gleaming high, the Chief 1 — as though 
That crash of deadly music, and the burst 
Of sulphurous vapor, had from out the earth 



456 sterling's southern orator. 

Summoned the god of war. Doubly exposed, 

He stood unharmed. Like eagles tempest-borne 

Rushed to his side his men ; and had our souls 

And arms with twofold strength been braced, we yet 

Had not withstood that onset. Thus does he 

Keep ever with occasion even step — 

Now, warily before our eager speed 

Retreating, tempting us with battle's promise, 

Only to toil us with a vain pursuit ; 

Now, wheeling rapidly about our flanks, 

Startling our ears with sudden peal of war, 

And fronting in the thickest of the fight 

The common soldier's death, stirring the blood 

Of faintest hearts to deeds of bravery 

By his great presence ; and his every act, 

Of heady onslaught as of backward march, 

From thoughtful judgment first inferred. 



CCCXLV. 
THE COLOR-BEARER.-— Mrs. M. J. Preston. 

The shock of battle swept the lines, 

The wounded men and slain 
Lay thick as lie in summer fields 

The ridgy swaths of grain. 

The deadly volleys belched their fire, 

The raking cannon pealed ; 
The lightning-flash of bayonets 

Went glittering round the field. 

On rushed the gallant " Twenty-fourth" 

Against the bristling guns, 
Whose blaze could daunt or dazzle them 

No more than could the sun's. 

It mattered not though heads went down, 
Though stately steps were staid — 

Though rifles dropt from bleeding hands, 
And ghastly gaps were made. 



sterling's southern orator. 457 

" Close up !" was still the stern command, 
And with unwavering tread 
They held right on, though well they knew 
They tracked their way with dead. 

As fast they pressed, with laboring breath, 

Clinched teeth, and knitted frown, 
The sharp and sudden cry rang out, 

"The color-bearer's down!" 

Quick to the front sprang eagerly 

The youngest of the band, 
And caught the flag still tightly held 

Within the fallen hand. 

With cheer he reared it high again, 

Yet claimed an instant's pause 
To lift the dying man, and see 

Whose pallid face it was. 

" Forward !" the captain shouted loud, 
Still " Forward !" and the men 
Caught madly up the shrill command 
And shrieked it out again. 

But moveless stood the fair-faced boy 

Without a foot's advance, 
Until the captain shook his arm, 

And roused him from his trance. 

His home had flashed upon his sight, 

That blest and sunny spot ; 
He did not hear the crashing shells, 

Nor heed the hissing shot. 

He saw his mother wring her hands, 

He heard his sister's cries ; 
And tears were on his girl-like cheeks, 

And grief was in his eyes. 

The touch dissolved the spell — he knew, 

He felt the fearful stir ; 
He raised his head, and softly said, 

" He was my brother, sir !" 



.458 sterling's southern orator. 

Then grasping firm the crimson flag, 

He flung it free and high, 
While patriot passion staunched his tears 

And drank his sorrow dry. 

Between his close, set teeth he spoke — 
And hard he draw his breath : 
" I'll bear this flag to victory, 
Or bear it, sir, to death !" 

The bellowing batteries thundered on, 
The sulph'rous smoke rose higher, 

And from the columns in the front 
Poured forth the galling fire. 

But where the bullets thickest fell, 
Where hottest raged the fight, 

The steady colors tossed aloft 
Their trail of crimson light. 

Firm and indomitable still 

The " Twenty-fourth" moved on — 

A dauntless remnant only left — 
The brave threescore were gone ! 

And now once more the cry arose, 
Which not the guns could drown : 
"Ho, boys ! up with the flag again ! 
The color-bearer's down !" 

They sought to loose his grasp, but fast 
He clung with iron will : 
" The arm that's broken is my left y 
So I can hold it still !" 

And " Forward ! forward ! Twenty-fourth !" 

Rang out above the roar, 
When suddenly the guiding flag 

Sank, and was seen no more. 

And when the fiery fight was done, 

And from the bloody field 
The battered M Twenty-fourth" withdrew, 

Because they would not yield, 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN ORATOR, 459 

They found a boy whose face still wore 

A look resolved and grand — 
A rent and riddled flag close clutched 

Within his shattered hand ! 



CCCXLVI. 

RAPHAEL'S ACCOUNT OF CREATION.— Milton. 

Heavek opened wide 
Her ever-during gates — harmonious sound — 
On golden hinges moving, to let forth 
The King of Glory, in His powerful Word 
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds. 
On heavenly ground They stood ; and, from the shore, 
They viewed the vast, immeasurable abyss, 
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, 
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds 
And surging waves, as mountains to assault 
Heaven's height, and with the centre mix the pole. 

" Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou deep, peace !" 
Said then the Omnific Word ; " your discord end !" 
Nor staid, but, on the wings of cherubim 
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode 
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn ; 
For Chaos heard His voice : Him all His train 
Followed in bright procession, to behold 
Creation, and the wonders of His might. 
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in His hand 
He took the golden compasses prepared 
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe 
This universe, and all created things : 
One foot He centred, and the other turned 
Round through the vast profundity obscure, 
And said, " Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, 
This be thy just circumference, O world !" 
Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth, 
Matter unformed and void ; darkness profound 



4:60 sterling's southern okator. 

Covered the abyss $ but on the watery calm 
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread, 
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth 
Throughout the fluid mass : 



then founded, then conglobed 
Like things to like, the rest to several place 
Disparted, and between spun out the air; 
And earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung. 

" Let there be light !" said God; and- forthwith light 
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, 
Sprung from the deep, and, from her native east, 
To journey through the airy gloom began, 
Sphered in a radiant cloud ; for yet the sun 
Was not : she in -a cloudy tabernacle 
Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good, 
And light from darkness, by the hemisphere, 
Divided : light the day, and darkness night, 
He named. Thus was the first day even and morn. 
"Nor passed uncelebrated, nor unsung 
By the celestial choirs, when orient light 
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld ; 
Birthday of heaven and earth : with joy and shout 
The hollow universal orb they filled, 
And touched their golden harps, and, hymning, praised 
God and His works ; Creator Him they sung, 
Both when first evening was, and when first morn. 



CCCXLVII. 

THE DYING YEAR.— Mrs. S. M. Chotn. 

The dying year ! the dying year ! how swift the moments 

We hear it in the murmuring wind that passes sadly by, 
We see it in the sombre face that weeping Nature wears, 
'Twill soon be numbered with the past, the long forgotten 
years. 






sterling's southern orator. 461 

The joyous Spring that gladly came in Nature's fair array, 
With robes all bright and beautiful, to grace the gladsome 

day, 
Shone on us with its look of love a few brief passing hours, 
And then the glorious light of Spring departed like its 

flowers. 

The Summer came with golden fruits, with gorgeous flowers 

and gay, 
But yet its never-wearying hours passed swiftly on their 

Till Autumn with its noiseless step, its sure but silent tread, 
Had o'er the hills and valleys round a deeper lustre shed. 

Then Winter came with hollow sound, with low and rus- 
tling tone 

It told that Summer's glorious hours and Autumn's light 
had flown : 

The year that lately on us shone, so fair, so bright and gay, 

Is passing, passing, swiftly on, departing still away. 

And shall we come Avith festive song, and music's gladsome 

swell, 
To chase the dying year away, and bid it thus farewell ? 
Are there no buried hopes to lie within the lonely bier 
That soon will close in sadness round the fast departing 

year ? 

How many young and buoyant hearts that gladly hailed 

its dawn, 
From earthly scenes, and earthly hopes, and earthly cares 

are gone ! 
The gentle look, the thrilling tone, the beating heart is 

stilled, 
The voice of sweetest melody by Death's cold touch is 

chilled. 

But whispers from the spirit-land in accents softly come, 

And tell us of a fairer clime, a never-dying home ; 

A clime where seasons never change, a land beyond the 

tomb, 
Where heavenly streams in glory flow, and flowers eternal 

bloom. 



462 sterling's southern orator. 

Then with the year's departing lay, oh, let us raise above 
The voice of deep and earnest prayer to Him whose name is 

Love, 
That, when our year of life shall close, a bright and glorious 

even 
Shall herald forth a noble rest prepared for us in heaven! 



CCCXLVIII. 
THE PLEASURES OF A PICNIC PARTY.—T. Hood. 

If, sick of home and luxuries, 

You want a new sensation, 
And sigh for the unwontedease 

Of unaccommodation — 
If you would taste, as amateur 

And vagabond beginner, 
The painful pleasures of the poor, 

Get up a picnic dinner. 

Presto ! — 'tis done ! — away you start, 

All frolic, fun, and laughter ; 
The servants and provision-cart 

As gayly trotting after. 
The spot is reached, when all exclaim, 

With many a joyous antic, 
" How sweet a scene ! I'm glad I came ! 

How rural ! how romantic !" 

Half starved with hunger, parched with thirst, 

All haste to spread the dishes, 
When, lo ! 'tis found the ale had burst 

Among the loaves and fishes ! 
Over the pie a sudden hop 

The grasshoppers are skipping ; 
Each roll's a sponge, each loaf a mop, 

And all the meat is dripping ! 

Bristling with broken glass, you find 
Some cakes among the bottles — 

Which those may eat who do not mind 
Excoriated throttles ! 



sterling's southern orator. 463 

The biscuits now are wiped and dried, 
When squalling voices utter, 
cc Look ! look ! a toad has got astride 
Our only pot of 'butter !" 

Your solids in a liquid state, 

Your cooling liquids heated, 
And every promised joy by fate 

Most fatally defeated. 
All, save the serving-men, are soured — 

They smirk — the cunning sinners — 
Having, before they came, devoured 

Most comfortable dinners ! 

Still you assume, in very spite, 

A grim and gloomy sadness ; 
Pretend to laugh, affect delight, 

And scorn all show of sadness ! 
While thus you smile, but storm within, 

A storm without comes faster, 
And down descends, in deafening din, 

A deluge of disaster. 

'Tis sauve que pent — the fruit dessert 

Is fruitlessly deserted ; 
And homeward now you all revert, 

Dull, desolate, and dirtied ! 
Each gruffly grumbling, as he eyes 

His soaked and sullen brother, 
" If these are picnic pleasantries, 

Preserve me from another !" 



CCCXLIX. 

LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP.— H. W. Longfellow. 

All is finished, and at length 

Has come the bridal day 

Of beauty and of strength. 

To-day the vessel shall be launched ! 

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 

And o'er the bay, 



4:64: sterling's southern orator. 

Slowly, in all his splendors bright, 
The great sun rises to behold the sight. 

The ocean old, 

Centuries old, 

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 

Paces restless to and fro, 

Tip and down the sands of gold. 

His beating heart is not at rest ; 

And far and wide 

With ceaseless flow 

As beard of snow 

Heaves w^ith the heaving of his breast. 

He waits impatient for his bride. 

There she stands 

With her foot upon the sands, 

Decked with flags and streamers gay, 

In honor of her marriage-day, 

Her snow- white signals fluttering, blending 

Round her like a veil descending, 

Ready to be 

The bride of the gray old sea. 

Then the master, 
With a gesture of command, 
Waved his hand, 
And at the word, 
Loud and sudden there was heard, 
All around them and below, 
The sound of hammers, blow on blow, 
Knocking away the shores and spurs. 
And see ! she stirs ! 

She starts — she moves — she seems to feel 
The thrill of life along her keel, 
And, spurning with her foot the ground, 
With one exulting, joyous bound, 
She leaps into the ocean's arms. 

And lo ! from the assembled crowd 
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 



sterling's southern orator. 465 

That to the ocean seemed to say, 
" Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray ! 
Take her to thy protecting arms, 
With all her youth and all her charms." 

How beautiful she is ! how fair. 

She lies within those arms, that press 

Her form with many a soft caress 

Of tenderness and watchful care ! 

Sail forth into the sea, O ship ! 

Through wind and wave, right onward steer ! 

The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 

Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 

Sail forth into the sea of life, 

O gentle, loving, trusting wife I 

And safe from all adversity, 

Upon the bosom of that sea, 

Thy comings and thy goings be f 

For gentleness, and love, and trust 

Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ; 

And in the wreck of noble livea 

Something immortal still survives ! 

Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity, with all its fears, 
With all its hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What workman wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge, and what a heat, 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock ; 
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 
'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale. 
In spite of rock and tempest roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea. 



466 sterling's southern orator. 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee : 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee — are all with thee. 



CCCL. 
TASTE.— Akenside. 



What, then, is taste, but these internal powers 
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive 
To each fine impulse ? a discerning sense 
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust 
For things deformed, or disarranged, or gross 
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold, 
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow, 
But God alone when first His active hand 
Imprints the secret bias of the soul. 
He, mighty parent ! wise and just in all, 
Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven, 
Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain 
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's 
Long labor, why, forgetful of his toils 
And due repose, he loiters to behold 
The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds, 
O'er all the western sky ; full soon, I ween, 
His rude expression and untutored airs, 
Beyond the power of language, will unfold 
The form of beauty smiling at his heart, 
How lovely ! how commanding ? But though Heaven 
In every breast hath sown these early seeds 
Of love and admiration, yet in vain, 
Without fair culture's kind parental aid, 
Without enlivening suns, and genial showers, 
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope 
The tender plant should rear its blooming head, 
Or yield the harvest promised in its spring. 
Nor yet will every soil with equal stores 
Repay the tiller's labor ; or attend 
His will, obsequious, whether to produce 



sterling's southern orator. 467 

The olive or the laurel. Different minds 
Incline to different objects ; one pursues 
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild ; 
Another sighs for harmony, and grace, 
And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires 
The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground ; 
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air, 
And ocean, groaning from its lowest bed, 
Heaves its tempestuous billows to the sky ; 
Amid the mighty uproar, while below 
The nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad 
From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys 
^The elemental war. But Waller longs, 
All on the margin of some flowery stream, 
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool 
Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer 
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain 
Resound soft warbling all the live-long day; 
Consenting zephyr sighs ; the weeping rill 
Joins in his plaint melodious ; mute the groves ; 
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn. 
Such and so various are the tastes of men. 



CCCIil. 
MAJOR BROWN.— T. Hood. 



If any man, in any age, in any town or city, 

Was ever valiant, courteous, sage, experienced, wise, or 
witty, 

That man was Major Brown by name ; the fact you cannot 
doubt, 

For he himself would say the same, ten times a day about. 

The major in the foreign wars indifferently had fared; 

For he was covered o'er with scars, though he was never 
scared. 

But war had now retired to rest, and piping peace return- 
ed; 

Yet still within his ardent breast the major's spirit burned. 



468 sterling's southern orator. 

When suddenly he heard of one who in an air balloon 

Had gone — I can't tell where he'd gone — almost into the 
moon, 

"Let me — let me," the major cries, "let me, like him, 
ascend ; 

And if it fall that I should rise, who knows where it may- 
end ?" 

The cords are cut — a mighty shout — the globe ascends on 
high ; 

And, like a ball from gun shot out, the major mounts the 
sky— 

Or would have done, but cruel chance forbade it so to be ; 

And bade the major not advance — caught in a chestnut 
tree. 

But soon the awkward branch gives way, he smooths his 

angry brow, 
Shoots upward, rescued from delay, and makes the branch 

a bow : 
Till, mounting furlongs now some dozens, and peeping 

down, he pants 
To see his mother, sisters, cousins, and uncles look like 

ants. 
That Brown looked blue I will not say — his uniform was 

red — 
But he thought that if his car gave way he should probably 

be dead. 
He gave his manly breast a slap, and loudly shouted, 

" Courage !" 
And w^aved above his head the cap in which he used to 

forage. 

And up he went, and looked around to see what there 

might be, 
And felt convinced that on the ground were better things 

to see. 
A strange bird came his path across, whose name he did 

not know ; 
Quoth he, "'Tis like an albatross ;" it proved to be a crow. 
" I wish that you would please to drop," quoth Brown to 

his balloon ; 
He might as well have spoken to the man that's in the 

moon. 



sterling's southern orator. 469 

And now the heavens begin to lower, and thunders loud to 

roll, 
And winds and rains to blow and pour, that would daunt a 

general's soul. 

Such a hurricane to Major Brown must most unpleasant be ; 
And he said, " If I cannot get down, 'twill be all up with 

me !" 
* From his pocket then a knife he took; in Birmingham 'twas 

made; 
The handle was of handsome look, of tempered steel the 

blade. 
Says he, " The acquaintance of a balloon I certainly shall cut." 
So in the silken bag full soon his penknife blade he put. 
Out rushed the gas imprisoned there — the balloon began to 

sink: 
"I shall surely soon get out of the air," said Major Brown, 

u I think." 



Alas for Brown, balloon, and car, the gas went out too 

fast ; 
The car went upside down, and far poor Major Brown was 

cast, 
Long time head over heels he tumbled, till unto the ground, 
As I suppose, he must have come ; but he was never found. 
The car was found in London town ; the bag to Oxford 

flew; 
But what became of Major Brown no mortal ever knew. 



CCCLII. 
LOVE AND MURDER.— Anonymous. 

In Manchester a maiden dwelt, 

Her name was Phoebe Brown ; 
Her cheeks were red, her hair was black, 

And she was considered by good judges to be 
by all odds the best-looking girl in town. 



470 sterling's southern orator. 

Her age was nearly seventeen, 

Her eyes were sparkling bright ; 
A very lovely girl she was, 

And for about a year and a half there had been 
a young man paying his attention to her, by the name of 
Reuben Wright. 

Now Reuben was a nice young man 

As any in the town ; 
And Phoebe loved him very dear, 

But, on account of his being obliged to work for 
a living, he never could make himself agreeable to old Mr. 
and Mrs. Brown. 

Her parents were resolved 
Another she should wed, 
A rich old miser in the place, 

And old Brown frequently declared, that, rather 
than have his daughter marry Reuben Wright, he'd sooner 
knock him on the head. 

But Phoebe's heart was brave and strong, 

She feared not her parents' frowns ; 
And as for Reuben Wright so bold, 

I've heard him say more than fifty times that, 
(with the exception of Phoebe,) he didn't care a cent for the 
whole race of Browns. 

So Phoebe Brown and Reuben Wright 

Determined they would marry ; 
Three weeks ago last Tuesday night 

They started for old Parson Webster's, deter- 
mined to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony, though 
it was tremendous dark, and rained like the old Harry. 

But Captain Brown was wide awake ; 

He loaded up his gun, 
And then pursued the loving pair ; 

And overtook 'em when they'd got about half 
way to the parson's, and then Reuben and Phoebe started 
off upon the run. 



sterling's southern orator. 471 

Old Brown then took a deadly aim 

Toward young Reuben's head ; 
But, oh, it was a burning shame ! 

He made a mistake, and shot his only daughter, 
and had the unspeakable anguish of seeing her drop right 
down stone dead. 

Then anguish filled young Reuben's heart, 

And vengeance crazed his brain ; 
He drew an awful jack-knife out, 

And plunged it into old Brown about fifty or 
sixty times, so that it's very doubtful about his ever coming 
to again. 

The briny drops from Reuben's eyes 

In torrents poured down, 
He yielded up the ghost, and died ; 

And in this melancholy and heart-rending man- 
ner terminates the history of Reuben and Phoebe, and like- 
wise old Captain Brown. 



CCCIiIII. 
THE LAST MAN.— Campbell. 

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, 

The sun himself must die', 
Before the mortal shall assume 

Its immortality. 
I saw a vision in my sleep 
That gave my spirit strength to sweep 

Adown the gulf of time. 
I saw the last of human mould 
That shall creation's death behold, 

As Adam saw her prime. 

The sun's eye had a sickly glare, 
The earth with age was wan ; 

The skeletons of nations were 
Around that lonely man. 



472 sterling's southern orator. 

Some had expired in fight; the brands 
Still rusted in their bony hands ; 

In plague and famine some. 
Earth's cities had no sound nor tread, 
And ships were drifting with the dead 

To shores where all was dumb. 

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood, 

With dauntless words and high, 
That shook the sear leaves from the wood 

As if a storm passed by ; 
Saying, " We are twins in death, proud sun 
Thy face is cold, thy race is run ; 

'Tis mercy bids thee go. 
For thou, ten thousand thousand years, 
Hast seen the tide of human tears 

That shall no longer flow. 

44 What though beneath thee man put forth 

His pomp, his pride, his skill ; 
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth 

The vassals of his will; 
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, 
Thou dim, discrowned king of day : 

For all those trophied arts 
And triumphs that beneath thee sprang 
Healed not a passion or a pang 

Entailed on human hearts. 

Go — let oblivion's curtain fall 

Upon the stage of men, 
Nor with thy rising beams recall 

Life's tragedy again. 
Its piteous pageants bring not back, 
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack 

Of pain anew to writhe ; 
Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred, 
Or mown in battle by the sword, 

Like grass beneath the scythe. 

Even I am weary in yon skies 
To watch thy fading fire ; 



sterling's southern orator. 473 

Test of all sunless agonies, 

Behold not me expire. 
My lips that speak thy dirge of death — 
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath 

To see thou shalt not boast. 
The eclipse of nature spreads my pall — ■ 
The majesty of darkness shall 

Receive my parting ghost ! 

This spirit shall return to Him 

That gave its heavenly spark; 
Yet think not, sun, it shall be dim 

When thou thyself art dark ! 
No ! it shall live again, and shine 
In bliss unknown to beams of thine : 

By Him recalled to breath, 
Who captive led captivity, 
Who robbed the grave of victory, 

And took the sting from death ! 

Go, sun, while mercy holds me up 

On nature's awful waste, 
To drink this last and bitter cup 

Of grief that man shall taste — 
Go, tell the night that hides thy face, 
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race 

On earth's sepulchral clod, 
The dark'ning universe defy 
To quench his immortality, 

Or shake his trust in God ! 



CCCLIV. 

THE QUARREL OP BRUTUS AND CASSIU&— Shakespeake. 

Cassius. That you have wronged me, doth appear in this : 
You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella, 
For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; 
Wherein my letters, praying on his side, 
Because I knew the man, were slighted o£ 



474 sterling's southern orator. 

Brutus. You wronged yourself, to write in such a case. 

Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet 
That every nice offence should bear its comment. 

Bru. Yet let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemned to have an itching palm ; 
To sell and mart your offices for gold 
To undeservers. 

Cas. I an itching palm ? 
You know that you are Brutus that speak this, 
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last. 

Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption, 
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head. 

Cas. Chastisement! 

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember 
Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake ? 
What villain touched his body, that did stab, 
And not for justice ? What, shall one of us, 
That struck the foremost man in all this world, 
But for supporting robbers ; shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ? 
And sell the mighty space of our large honors, 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
Than such a Roman. 

Cas. Brutus, bay not me, 
I'll not endure it ; you forget yourself 
To hedge me in ; I am a soldier, I, 
Older in practice, abler than yourself 
To make conditions. 

Bru. Go to ; you're not Cassius. 

Cas. I am. 

Bru. I say you are not. 

Cas. Urge me no more ; I shall forget myself; 
Have mind upon your health ; tempt me no further. 

Bru. Away, slight man ! 

Cas. Is it possible ? 

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. 

Must I give way and room to your rash choler ? 
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ? 

Cas. Must I endure all this ? 

Bru. AH this ? Ay, more ; fret till your proud heart break. 
Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, 
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? 



sterling's southern orator. 475 

Must I observe you ? Must' I stand and crouch 
Under your testy humor ? 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, 
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
When you are waspish. 

Cas. Is it come to this ? 

Bru. You say you are a better soldier : 
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 
And it shall please me well. For mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men. 

Cas. You wrong me every way ; you wrong me, Brutus ; 
I said an elder soldier, not a better : 
Did I say better ? 

J9m If you did, I care not. 

Cas. When Caesar lived, he durst not thus have moved me. 

Bru. Peace, peace ; you durst not so have tempted him. 

Cas. I durst not ? 

Bru. No. 

Cas. What ! Durst not tempt him ? 

Bru. For your life you durst not. 

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love ; 
I may do that I shall be sorry for. 

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats ; 
For I am armed so strong in honesty, 
That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
Which I respect not. I did send to you 
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; 
For I can raise no money by vile means : 
I had rather coin my heart, 

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash 
By any indirection. I did send 
To you for gold to pay my legions, 
Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius ? 
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so ? 
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, 
Dash him to pieces ! 

Cas. I denied you not. 

Bnu You? did. 



476 sterling's southern orator. 

Cas. I did not. He was but a fool 

That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart ; 
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities; 
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 

Uru. I do not, till you practise them on me. 

Cas. You love me not. 

Bru. I do not like your faults. 

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 

Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear 
As huge as high Olympus. 

Gas. Come, Antony and young Octavius, come ! 
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, 
For Cassius is aweary of the world : 
Hated by one he loves ; braved by his brother ; 
Checked like a bondman ; all his faults observed, 
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote, 
To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep 
My spirit from mine eyes ! There is my dagger, 
And here my naked breast ; within, a heart 
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold ; 
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth; 
I that denied thee gold will give my heart: 
Strike as thou didst at Caesar ; for I know 
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov^dst him better 
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius. 

Bru. Sheathe your dagger : 

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope; 
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor. 
O Cassius ! you are yoked with a lamb 
That carries anger as a flint bears fire ; 
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again. 

Cas. Hath Cassius lived 

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
When grief or blood ill-tempered vexeth him ? 

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too. 

Cas. Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand. 

Bru. And my heart too. 

Cas. O Brutus ! 

Bru. What's the matter? 

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me 
When that rash humor which my mother gave me 
Makes me forgetful ? 



sterling's southern orator. 477 

JBru. Yes, Cassius ; and from henceforth, 
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 



CCCLV. 
BANISHMENT OF CATILINE.— S. Ckoly. 

Scene: Senate in session, a Consul in the chair y lictors 
present. Cicero concluding his speech. 

Cicero. Our long dispute must close. Take one proof 
more 
Of this rebellion. Lucius Catiline 
Has been commanded to attend the senate ; 
He dares not come ! I now demand your votes ! 
Is he condemned to exile ? 

(Enter Catiline hastily, and, as he seats himself on one side, 
all the senators go over to the other.) 

Cic. (Turning to Catiline.) Here I repeat the charge, to 
gods and men, 
Of treason manifold; that, but this day, 
He has received despatches from the rebels ; 
That he has leagued with deputies from Gaul 
To siege the province ; nay, he has levied troops, 
And raised his rebel standard ; that, but now, 
A meeting of conspirators was held 
Under his roof, with mystic rites and oaths, 
Pledged round the body of a murdered slave. 
To these he has no answer. 

Catiline. (Rising calmly.) Conscript fathers ! 
I do not rise to waste the night in words : 
Let that plebeian talk ; 'tis not my trade : 
But here I stand for right : let him show proofs ! 
For Roman right ! though none, it seems, dare stand 
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there ! 
Cling to your master — judges, Romans — slaves ! 
His charge is false ! I dare him to his proofs ! 
You have my answer ; let my actions speak ! 

Cic. (Interrupting^) Deeds shall convince you ! Has the 
traitor done ? 



478 sterling's southern orator. 

Cat. But this I will avow, that I have scorned, 
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong ; 
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword, 
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back, 
"Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts 
The gates of honor on me — turning out 
The Roman from his birthright — and for what? 
To fling your offices to every slave ; {looking around him /) 
Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb ; 
And having wound their loathsome track to the top 
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome, 
Hang hissing at the nobler men below. 

Cic. This is his answer ! Must I bring more proofs ? 
Fathers, you know there lives not one of us, 
But lives in peril of his midnight sword. 
Lists of proscription have been handed round, 
In which your properties are made 
Your murderer's hire. 
{A cry without, " More prisoners /" Enter an officer, with 

letters for Cicero, who^ after looking at them, sends them 
around the senate.) 

Cic. Fathers of Rome ! If men can be convinced 
By proof as clear as daylight, here it is ! 
Look on these letters ! Here's a deep-laid plot 
To wreck the provinces ; a solemn league, 
Made with all form and circumstance. The time 
Is desperate — all the slaves are up — Rome shakes ! — 
The heavens alone can tell how near our graves 
We stand even here ! The name of Catiline 
Is foremost in the league. He was their king. 
Tried and convicted traitor ! Go from Rome ! 

Cat. {Rising haughtily.) Come, consecrated lictors, from 
your thrones ! 
Fling down your sceptres ! — take the rod and axe, 
And make the murder, as you make the law ! 

Cic. (To an officer, and interrupting Catiline.) Give up 
the record of his banishment. {The officer gives it to 
the consul.) • 

Cat. { With indignation.) Banished from Rome ! What's 
banished, but set free 
From daily contact of the things I loathe ? 
" Tried and convicted traitor !" — who says this ? 
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head ? 



sterling's southern orator. 479 

Banished ? I thank you for it ! It breaks my chain ! 

I held some slack allegiance till this hour — 

But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords ! 

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, 

Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, 

I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, 

To leave you in your lazy dignities ! 

But here I stand and scoff you ! — here I fling 

Hatred and full defiance in your face ! 

Your consul's merciful. For this, all thanks ! — 

He dares not touch a hair of Catiline ! 

Consul. (Heads.) "Lucius Sergius Catiline! by the 
decree of the senate, you are declared an enemy and alien 
to the state, and banished from the territory of the com- 
monwealth !" {Turning to the lictors.) Lictors, drive the 
traitor from the temple ! 

Cat. (Frantic.) " Traitor !" I go ; but I return ! This 
trial !— , 
Here I devote your senate ! — I've had wrongs, 
To stir a fever in the blood of age, 
And make the infant's sinews strong as steel. 
This day's the birth of sorrows ! This hour's work 
Will breed proscriptions ! Look to your hearths, my lords ! 
For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods, 
Shapes hot from Tartarus ! — all shames and crimes ; 
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ; 
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup ; 
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and axe, 
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ; 
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night, 
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave ! 

Senators. (Rising in confusion, cry out.) Go, enemy and 
parricide, from Rome ! 

Cic. Expel him, lictors ! Clear the senate-house ! 

Cat. (Struggling through the lictors surrounding him.) 
I go ! but not to leap the gulf alone. 
I go ! but when I come 'twill be the burst 
Of ocean in the earthquake — rolling back 
In swift and mountainous ruin ! Fare you well ! 
You build my funeral pile, but your best biood 
Shall quench its flame ! (To the lictors.) Back, slaves ! I 
will return. (Exeunt.) 



480 sterling's southern orator. 

CCCLVI. 
HOME AND LOVE.— Miss Mitfokd. 

Hienzi. Claudia — :nay, start not ! Thou art sad to-day ; 
I found thee sitting idly, 'mid thy maids ; 
A pretty, laughing, restless band, who plied 
Quick tongue and nimble finger. Mute, and pale 
As marble, those unseeing eyes were fixed 
On vacant air ; and that fair brow was bent 
As sternly as if the rude stranger, thought, 
Age-giving, mirth-destroying, pitiless thought, 
Had knocked at thy young, giddy brain. 

Claudia. Nay, father, 
Mock not thine own poor Claudia, 

Hie. Claudia used 
To bear a merry heart with that clear voice, 
Prattling, and that light, busy foot, astir 
In her small housewifery, the blithest bee 
That ever wrought in hive. 

Cla. O mine old home ! 

Hie. What ails thee, lady-bird ? 

Cla. Mine own dear home ! 
Father, I love not this new state ; these halls, 
Where comfort dies in vastness ; these trim maids, 
Whose service wearies me. O mine old home ! 
My quiet, pleasant chamber, with the myrtle 
Woven round the casement ; and the cedar by, 
Shading the sun ; my garden overgrown 
With flowers and herbs, thickset as grass in fields ; 
My pretty, snow-white doves ; my kindest nurse ; 
And old Camillo. O mine own dear home ! 

Hie. Why, simple child, thou hast thine old, fond nurse. 
And good Camillo, and shalt have thy doves, 
Thy myrtles, flowers, and cedars : a whole province 
Laid in a garden, if thou wilt. My Claudia, 
Hast thou not learnt thy power ? Ask orient gems, 
Diamonds, and sapphires, in rich caskets, wrought 
By cunning goldsmiths ; sigh for rarest birds, 
Of furthest Ind, like winged flowers to flit 
Around thy stately bower ; and, at thy wish, 
The precious toys shall wait thee. Old Camillo ? 



STERLING'S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 481 

Thou shalt have nobler servants ; emperors, kings, 
Electors, princes ! Not a bachelor 
In Christendom but would right proudly kneel 
To my fair daughter. 

Cla, O mine own dear home ! 

Hie. Wilt have a list to choose from ? Listen, sweet ! 
If the tall cedar, and the branchy myrtle, 
And the white doves, were tell-tales, I would ask them, 
Whose was the shadow on the sunny Avail ? 
And if at eventide they heard not oft 
A tuneful mandolin ; and then, a voice 
Clear in its manly depth, whose tide of song 
O'erwhelmed the quivering instrument ; and then, 
A world of whispers, mixed with low response, 
Sweet, short, and broken as divided strains 
Of nightingales. « 

Cla. O father ! father ! {Runs to him and falls upon 

Hie. Well ! his neck?) 

Dost love him, Claudia ? 

Cla. Father! 

Hie. Dost thou love 
Young Angelo ? Yes ? Saidst thou yes ? That heart, 
That throbbing heart of thine, keeps such a coil, 
I cannot hear thy words. He is returned 
To Rome ; he left thee on mine errand, dear one ; 
And now, is there no casement, myrtle-wreathed, 
No cedar in our courts, to shade to-night 
The lover's song ? 

Cla. O father ! father ! 

Hie. Now, 
Back to thy maidens, with a lightened heart, 
Mine own beloved child. Thou shalt be first 
Li Rome, as thou art fairest ; never princess 
Brought to the proud Colonna such a dower 
As thou. Young Angelo hath chosen his mate 
From out an eagle's nest. 

Cla, Alas ! alas ! 
I tremble at the height. Whene'er I think 
Of the hot barons, of the fickle people, 
And the inconstancy of power, I tremble 
For thee, dear father. 

Hie. Tremble ? Let them tremble. 
I am their master, Claudia, whom they scorned, 

21 



482 sterling's southern orator. 

Endured, protected. Sweet, go dream of love ! 
I am their master, Claudia. 



CCCLVII. 
DRESS AND ASSURANCE.— Bkonson's Elocution. 

George. How are you, Dick ? Why, what's the matter, 
boy ? Whose sins are you lamenting now ? 

Richard. Yours, George. I cannot but tremble for you, 
when I consider what must be the inevitable consequence of 
your present line of conduct. 

Geo. Pshaw, Dick. Jfow, don't, my good fellow, distress 
yourself on my account, for I am determined to enjoy life, 
and I should be sorry to have my enjoyment xhe source of 
pain to an old friend. 

Rich. What do you mean by enjoyment? 

Geo. Enjoyment ! Why, plenty of all the good things of 
this world, and a comfortable sit down, now and then, with 
one's friends. 

Rich. But you do not recollect that your resources are 
by no means equal to your dress, and other extraordinary 
expenses. 

Geo. We bloods look to our dress for resources and not 
to our resources for dress, as you do. 

Rich. Can you do this honestly ? 

Geo. Hon-est-ly ! {Drawling it out.) We have no such 
word in our vocabulary. 

Rich. So it would seem. But, tell me, how do you con- 
trive to keep up such an appearance of wealth and fashion, 
when I can barely subsist ? What is the chief requisite ? 

Geo. Assurance, my dear. Lay in a good stock of assur- 
ance, and you have a mine at your disposal. 

Rich. But will assurance clothe me ? 

Geo. Yes, and feed you, too. Hark ye, Dick. If your 
clothes are worn out, or unfashionable, go to a tailor, and 
order a suit of the best cloth, to be sent to your lodgings. 
Say nothing about the price, mind you — say nothing about 
that. None but the vulgar, who intend to pay, ever say 
any thing about the price. 



STERLING S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 483 

Rich. Well, but must not I pay for them ? 

Geo. Pay for them? No, man. When Pricklouse calls 
for his money, order another suit. Try this expedient till 
he refuses to work for you, then swear at him for, a trouble- 
some puppy, and forbid him your house. 

Rich. Clothes, however, are not all I shall need. 

Geo. That's true, Dick. But they will procure every 
thing else. What's a man without clothes ? A smooth 
shilling, that hardly passes for what it really weighs, while 
every body gives currency to one fresh from the mint. 
Clothes, Dick, are a sine qua non with us bloods. 

Rich. How so ? Every body appears to laugh at your 
fashionable trim, and to wonder how you dare appear so 
ridiculous. 

Geo. Yes ; and yet the same poople do us homage. No 
door is closed against a fine coat. Few tradesmen inquire 
how we came by it ; and where is the lady who does not 
prefer it to an old, unfashionable one, let who will be in it ? 

Rich. But still I should appear awkward in company. 

Geo. Not if you have assurance. An impudent fellow 
may do a thousand awkward things that would ruin a 
modest man. Nay, Dick, we sometimes have our blunders 
imitated. You recollect the story of Lord Spencer, who, 
losing the skirts of his coat accidentally, had assurance 
enough to wear what was left on his shoulders, and obtain- 
ed the honor of introducing the garment which bears his 
name. 

Rich. He was more successful than the fox we read of in 
the fable, who, having lost his tail, wished to persuade his 
brethren of the inutility of that appendage. 

Geo. He was ashamed of his loss, Dick. Depend upon it, 
that fox wanted assurance. But my principles are gaining 
ground fast ; or how else can you account for the fact, that 
men of threescore are turning fops, and most of the rising 
generation attend to nothing but dress ? Time was when 
the cloak and surtout were the peculiar garb of manhood. 
Now no boy is without them. 

Rich. You might add, that drinking and tobacco, gam- 
ing and debt, were once the vices of man ; but now every 
fashionable urchin can drink his bottle, smoke his cigar, 
and bet like a gamester. Of debts, I have nothing to add 
to the description you have just given me. 

Geo. You have omitted one accomplishment, however. 



484: sterling's southern orator. 

The lad of fashion must swear a little. Nothing will show 
one's consequence like a volley of oaths, now and then. But 
dress is the rem»te cause of all this. I am sorry to own it, 
but you seldom see a man of sense who is a fop. When you 
dress a calf's head, you must always take out the brains. 

Rich. But how do all these consequences proceed from 
dress ? 

Geo. I will tell you, since I have begun to reveal our 
secrets. The time was, Dick, when modesty was consider- 
ed an accomplishment in children, and deference to their 
superiors a duty. But now, almost as soon as they can 
walk, children are expected to get rid of their modesty, and 
learn to disregard the presence of their elders and superiors. 

Rich. How does this affect their dress ? 

Geo. The competition commences at school; and then, 
as the tuition will be lost without practice, and there is 
some fear of the lad's relapsing into his former modesty, he 
must be introduced into company, and frequent balls and 
assemblies, where dress is indispensable. And as, with a 
genteel coat and a thorough knowledge of the capacity of 
his heels, he meets with a better reception than real worth 
does in a plain garb, it is no wonder that so many of our 
young men decorate their persons, instead of adorning their 
minds, and parade at the corners of our streets, instead of 
attending to their business or studies. 

Rich. But is not all this an argument against dress? 

Geo. Yes, Dick ; but what has argument to do with fash- 
ion ! You might as well talk of reason to the idiot who is 
not a subject of it. 

Rich. Do you ever consider what the endoi all this folly 
must necessarily be ? 

Geo. Oh, no ! Futurity is another word we have nothing 
to do with. But I have made my confessions, and have no 
idea of hearing a lecture upon them. So, good-by to you. 
The first glass I drink shall be to your health and reforma- 
tion. 

Rich. You had better continue thirsty, and promote your 
own. I thank you, however, for the hints you have given 
me ; and, I trust, in future, I shall remain contented with 
my obscurity, and no longer envy those whose exterior is 
their only recommendation. 






sterling's southern orator. 485 

ccclviii. 

THE THING THAT'S RIGHT.— Anonymous. 

Landlord. This is my new boarder coming this way. I 
wonder what his business is in town. At home, though, 
I will be bound he is a major, colonel, deacon, or squire. 
I will try to find out his business. By his important airs, 
he thinks himself somebody. 

(Enter General Punlcin.) 

Land. Good morning, sir. A fine day. 

General. Sir, your servant. 

Land. Is there any news abroad ? 

Gen. Nothing important, I believe. But I have been too 
busily engaged to look for news. 

Land. Purchasing goods, perhaps ? 

Gen. No ; I had a point to carry in the House ; and when 
I do a thing, I make a business of it. 

Land. Then I have the honor of a member of the Legisla- 
ture in my family ? 

' Gen. Yes, sir ; I represent the county of Bunkum ; elect- 
ed by six hundred and fifty-six majority. 

Land. You have probably had warm work in the House 
to-day ? 

Gen. Yes, pretty warm; but we clean beat them in the 
argument. 

Land. You took an active part in the debate, then ? 

Gen. Not exactly; for those lawyers talked so fast, I 
could not get a word in edgeways. However, I jogged a 
member from Blarney, and put him up to saying a smart 
thing or two. 

Land. Are you fond of public speaking ? 

Gen. Yes ; I always make a speech to my regiment every 
muster-day, for, you must know, I am a bit of a soldier at 
home ; but somehow or other, whenever \ rise to speak in 
the House, I feel something in my throat which says, l< Gen- 
eral, hold your tongue," and as I cannot speak a word, I 
take the advice. 

Land. That is prudent in you. 

Gen. Why, you see, I always mean to speak to the point, 



486 sterling's southern orator. 

and while I am condensing my ideas, up jumps somebody 
and gets the start of me. 

Land. You are as bad as the lame man at the pool of 
troubled water ; but you will get used to it in time. 

Gen. Yes, so I tell my wife. Now, says I, wife, when I 

go to ,* I mean to do the thing that's right. And when 

I was getting ready, my wife, says she, " General," (for my 
wife always calls me General,) " General," says she, " you 
must have a ruffle put on your shirt, as Squire Smart has." 
Now, I don't care nothing about such things myself, but my 
wife, says she, " you must do as other folks do." Well, 
says I, I mean to do the thing that's right — and so, you see, 
she ruffled two of the best linen ones — I always wear cotton 
at home, and a body must have a change, you know. 

Land. Your wife knows what gentility is. 

Gen. Yes, as our preacher says, " General," says he, 
4i your wife's a woman." And so she is, though I say it 
that should not say it. 

Land. Why did you not bring her down with you ? 

Gen. She asked me, but, says I, my dear, a good soldier 
leaves his \fafe at home, when he goes on duty, and I always 
wnsh to do the thing that's right, you know. 

Land. Did you take part in the debate on the penal code ? 

Gen. No ; you see I don't know nothing about those 
things, and as, I had not slept any the night before, I took 
a nap in the lobby, 

Land. But you voted when the question was taken ? 

Gen. Oh, yes, for my name was called. 

Land. How could you determine on which side to vote ? 

Gen. Why, you see, I watched the leading member of 
our party, and voted as he did, for he generally does the 
thing that's right. 

Land. You said that you had a measure to carry through 
the Legislature. Is it of importance ? 

Gen. Yes. You must know there's a brook between our 
county and the next, and we wanted to steal a march on 
them, and get an act passed to prevent the other side from 
fishing in it, so y # ou see they chose me to come and look to 
it. Not that I wanted to come, but having a little notion 
or two to buy for my store, says I to my wife, I wish to do 
the thing that's right, and I'll go. 

* Here let the speaker insert the name of the capital of his own State. 



sterling's southern orator. 487 

Land. Was this important question settled to-day ? 

Gen. Why, not exactly settled, as a body may say, for 
some one moved that the question be postponed till the 
thirty-first instant, and, having a little business to do down 
town, I seconded the motion, you see, and it was carried ; 
and I am glad of it, for I wish to do the thing that's right, 
and the other party cannot say I hurried them. 

Land. So I should think ; for, if they wait until February 
has thirty-one days, they will have no reason to complain. 

Gen. How is that? How — how — how's that? Have 
they outgeneralled me, after all ? 

" Tnirty days hath September, 
April, June, and November." 

I learned that when I was a boy. Faith they have gained 
the day. 

Land. Yes, or the month has. What a kettle of fish you 
have cooked for your constituents ! 

Gen. Why, between you and me, they had as good a right 
to the fish there as we had, and no doubt Providence over- 
ruled the business ; for,^s our minister says, He always does 
the thing that's right. 



CCCLIX. 
FROM THE COMEDY OF " MONEY."— Bulwer. 

(Evelyk, a rich man of fashion. Stout and Glossmore, 
violent politicians of opposite parties. Sharp, a lawyer?) 

Enter Evelyn, meeting Stout, who comes in out of 
breath with haste. Sharp is seated at a desk. 

Evelyn. Stout, you look heated ! 

Stmt, (icith great eagerness, but pompously?) I hear you 
have bought the great Groginhole property. 

Evelyn. It is true. Sharp says it's a bargain. 

Stout. Well, my dear friend Hopkins, member for Grog- 
inhole, can't live another month — excellent creature, the 
dearest friend I have in the world, — but the interests of 
mankind forbid regret for individuals ! Po^ins intends to 



488 sterling's southern orator. 

start for the borough the instant Hopkins is dead ! — your 
interest will secure his election. Now is your time ! put 
yourself forward in the march of enlightenment ! — By all 
that's bigoted, here comes Glossmore ! 
[Enter Glossmore.) 

Gloss, (eagerly.) So lucky to find you at home ! Hopkins 
of Groginhole is not long for this world. Popkins, the 
brewer, is already canvassing underhand, (so very ungentle- 
man like.) Keep your interest for young Lord Cipher — a 
most valuable candidate. This is an awful moment — the 
constitution depends on his return ! Vote for Cipher ! 

/Stout. Popkins is your man. 

Evelyn, (musing.) Cipher and Popkins — Popkins and 
Cipher. Enlightenment and Popkins — Cipher and the Con- 
stitution ! I am puzzled ! Stout, I am not known at Grog- 
inhole. 

Stout. Tour property's known there ! 

Evelyn. But purity of election — independence of vo- 
ters — 

Stout. To be sure. Cipher bribes abominably. Frus- 
trate his schemes — preserve the liberties of the borough — 
turn every man out of his house who votes against enlight- 
enment and Popkins. 

Evelyn. Right ! down with those who take the liberty 
to admire any liberty except our liberty ! That is liberty ! 

Gloss. Cipher has a stake in the country — will have fifty 
thousand a year — Cipher will never give a vote without 
considering beforehand how people of fifty thousand a year 
will be affected by the motion. 

Evelyn. Right: for as without law there would be no 
property, so to be the law for property is the only proper 
property of law ! That is law ! 

Stout. Popkins is all for economy: there's a sad waste of 
the public money — they give the Speaker five thousand 
a year, when I have a brother-in-law who takes the chair at 
the vestry, and who assures me confidentially he'd consent 
to be Speaker for half the money. . 

Gloss. Enough, Mr. Stout. Mr. Evelyn has too much 
at stake for a leveller. 

Stout. And too much sense for a bigot. 

Gloss. A bigot, sir ! 

Stout. Yes, a bigot ! 

(Puts his hat on, and with his hands in his pockets looks 
fiercely at Glossmore). 



sterling's southern orator. 489 

Evelyn, {laughing.) Mr. Evelyn has no politics at all. 
Did you ever play at battledore ? 

Both. Battledore! 

Evelyn. Battledore — -that is, a contest between two par- 
ties: both parties knock about something with singular 
skill — something is kept up — high — low — here — there — 
everywhere — nowhere ! How grave are the players ! how 
anxious the bystanders ! how noisy the battledores ! But, 
when this something falls to the ground, only fancy — it is 
nothing but cork and feather! — Go and play by your- 
selves — I'm no hand at it. 

Stout, {aside.) Sad ignorance ! Aristocrat ! 

Gloss, {aside.) Heartless principles ! Parvenu ! 

Stout. Then you don't go against us? I'll bring Pop- 
kins to-morrow. 

Gloss. Keep yourself free till I present Cipher to you. 

Stout. I must go to inquire after Hopkins. The return 
of Popkins will be an era in history. ( Goes out.) 

Gloss. I must go to the club : the eyes of the country 
are upon Groginhole. If Cipher fail, the constitution is 
gone. ( Goes out.) 

Evelyn. All parties alike ! nothing but money ! Money 
versus Man ! — Sharp, come here — let me look at you. {Sharp 
rises from the desk.) — You are my agent, my lawyer, my 
man of business. I believe you honest ; but w 7 hat is hon- 
esty ? where does it exist ? in what part of us ? 

Sharp. In the heart, I suppose, sir. 

Evelyn. Mr. Sharp, it exists in the breeches' pocket ! 
Observe, I lay this piece of yellow earth on the table — I 
contemplate you both; the man there — the gold here. 
Now, there is many a man in those streets as honest as you 
are, who moves, thinks, feels, and reasons as we do ; excel- 
lent in form, imperishable in soul; who, if his pockets were 
three days empty, would sell thought, reason, body, and 
soul too, for that little coin ! Is that the fault of the man ? 
No ! it is the fault of mankind. God made man ; behold 
what mankind has made a god ! By the by, Sharp, send a 
hundred pounds to the poor bricklayer whose house was 
burnt down yesterday. 

Shaip. Yes, sir. 

Evelyn, Well, man, don't" stand gaping there: have you 
no bowels? Go and see to it immediately. 
{They go out at opposite sides.) 
21* 



490 sterling's southern* orator. 

CCCIiX. 

SCENE FROM PIZARRO.— R. B. Sheridan. 
Sentinel, Rolla, and Alonzo. 

{Enter Holla, disguised as a monk,) 

Holla. Inform me, friend, is Alonzo, the Peruvian, confin- 
ed in this dungeon ? 

Sent. He is. 

Rolla. I must speak with him. 

Sent. You must not. 

Holla. He is my friend. 

Sent. Not if he were your brother. 

Holla. What is to be his fate ? 

Sent. He dies at sunrise. 

Holla. Ha ! then I am come in time — 

Sent. Just to witness his death. 

Holla. {Advancing toward the door.) Soldier, I must 
speak with him. 

Sent. {Pushing him bach.) Back ! back ! it is impossible. 

Holla. I do entreat you but for one moment. 
- Sent. You entreat in vain ; my orders are most strict. 

Holla. Look on this wedge of massy gold ; look on these 
precious gems. In thy land they will be wealth for thee 
and thine beyond thy hope or wish. Take them — they are 
thine ; let me but pass one moment with Alonzo. 

Sent. Away ! Wouldst thou corrupt me ? — me, an old 
Castilian ! I know my duty better. 

Holla. Soldier, hast thou a wife ? 

Sent. I have. 

Holla. Hast thou children ? 

Sent. Four — honest, lovely boys. 

Holla. Where didst thou leave them? 

Sent. In my native village, in the very cot where I was 
born. 

Holla. Dost thou love thy wife and children ? 

Sent. Do I love them ? God knows my heart — I do. 

Holla. Soldier, imagine thou wert doomed to die a cruel 
death in a strange land — what would be thy last request ? 

Sent. That some of my comrades should carry my dying 
blessing to my wife and children. 



sterling's southern orator. 491 

Holla. What if that comrade was at thy prison door, and 
should there be told thy fellow-soldier dies at sunrise, yet 
thou shalt not for a moment see him, nor shalt thou bear his 
dying blessing to his poor children or his wretched wife — 
what wouldst thou think of him who thus could drive thy 
comrade from the door ? 

JSmt.JIow? 

Holla. Alonzo has a wife and child ; and I am come but 
to receive for her, and for her poor babe, the last blessing 
of my friend. 

Sent. Go in. {Exit sentinel.) 

Holla. ( Calls.) Alonzo ! Alonzo ! 

{Enter Alonzo, speaking as he comes in.) 

Alon. How ! is my hour elapsed ? Well, I am ready. 

Holla. Alonzo ! — know me ! 

Alon. Rolla ! O Rolla ! how didst thou \^ass the 
guard ? 

Holla. There is not a moment to be lost in words. This 
disguise I tore from the dead body of a friar, as I passed our 
field of battle. It has gained me entrance to thy dungeon : 
now take it, thou, and fly ! 

Alon. And Rolla — • 

Holla. Will remain here in thy place. 

Alon. And die for me ! No ! rather eternal tortures rack 
me. 

Holla. I shall not die, Alonzo. It is thy life Pizzaro 
seeks, not Rolla's, and thy arm may soon deliver me from 
prison. Or, should it be otherwise, I am as a blighted tree 
in the desert ; nothing lives beneath my shelter. Thou art a 
husband and a father : the being of a lovely wife and help- 
less infant depend upon thy life. Go, go, Alonzo ! not to 
save thyself, but Cora and thy child. 

Alon. Urge me not thus, my friend. I am prej)ared to 
die in peace. 

Holla. To die in peace ! devoting her you have sworn to 
live for, to madness, misery, and death ! 

Alon. Merciful Heavens ! 

Holla. If thou art yet irresolute, Alonzo — now mark me 
well. Thou knowest that Rolla never pledged his word and 
shrunk from its fulfilment. Know, then, if thou art proudly 
obstinate, thou shalt have the desperate triumph of seeing 
Rolla perish by thy side. 

Alon. O Rolla ! you distract me. Wear you the robe, 



492 sterling's southern orator. 

and though dreadful the necessity, we will strike down the 
guard, and force our passage. 

Holla. What, the soldier on duty here ? 

Alon. Yes, else seeing two, the alarm will be instant 
death. 

Holla. For my nation's safety, I would not harm him. 
That soldier — mark me — is a man. All are not rnen that 
wear the human form. He refused my prayers, refused my 
gold, denying to admit, till his own feelings bribed him. I 
will not risk a hair of that man's head to save my heart- 
strings from consuming fire. But haste. A moment's fur- 
ther pause, and all is lost. 

Alon. Rolla, I fear thy friendship drives me from honor 
and from right. 

Rolla. Did Rolla ever counsel dishonor to his friend? 
{Throwing the friar's garment over his shoulders.) There, 
conceal thy face. Now, God be with thee. 



CCCIjXI. 
CLAUDIA PLEADING FOR HER HUSBAND.— Miss Mitford, 

Claudia. [Without.) Father! father! 

Jiienzi. Guard the door ! 
Be sure ye give not way. 

Cla. ( Without.) Father ! 

Hie. To see 
Her looks ! her tears ! 

(Miter Claudia hastily.) 

Cla. Who dares to stop me ? Father ! 

(Rushes into the arms of Rienzi.) 

Rie. I bade ye guard the entrance. 

Cla. Against me ? 
Ye must have men and gates of steel, to bar 
Claudia from her dear father. Where is he? 
They said he was with you — he — thou know'st 
Whom I would say. I heard you loud. I thought 
I heard you ; but, perchance, the dizzying throb 
Of my poor temples — Where is he ! I see 
No corse — if he were dead — Oh, no, no, no ! 
Thou could'st not, would'st not ! — say he lives ! 






sterling's southern orator. 493 

Hie. As yet 
He lives. 

Cla. Oh, blessings on thy heart, dear father ! 
Blessings on thy kind heart ! When shall I see him ? 
Is he in prison ? Fear hath made me weak, 
And wordless as a child. Oh, send for him. 
Thou hast pardoned him ; didst thou not say but now 
Thou hadst pardoned him? 

Hie. No. 

Cla. Oh, thou hast ! thou hast ! 
This is the dalliance thou wast wont to hold 
When I have craved some girlish boon, a bird, 
A flower, a moonlight walk ; but now I ask thee 
Life, more than life. Thou hast pardoned him? 

Hie. My Claudia ! 

Cla. Ay ! 1 am thine own Claudia, whose first word 
Was father ! These are the same hands that clung 
Around thy knees, a tottering babe ; the lips 
That, ere they had learned speech* would smile, and seek 
To meet thee with an infant's kiss ; these eyes 
Thou hast called so like my mother's, eyes that never 
Looked on thee but with looks of love. Oh, pardon ! 
Nay, father, speak not yet ; thy brows are knit 
Into a sternness. Pr'ythee speak not yet ! 

Hie. This traitor— 

Cla. Call him as thou wilt, but pardon ! 
Oh, pardon ! 

Hie. He defies me. 

Cla. See, I kneel. 
And be shall kneel, shall kiss thy feet ; wilt pardon ? 

Hie. Mine own dear Claudia. 

Cla. Pardon ! 

Hie. Raise thee up ; 
Rest on my bosom ; let thy beating heart 
Lie upon mine : so shall the mutual pang 
Be stilled. Oh, that thy father's soul. could bear 
This grief for thee, my sweet one ! Oh, forgive — 

Cla. Forgive thee what ? 'Tis so the headsman speaks 
To his poor victim ere he strikes* Do fathers 
Make widows of their children ? send them down 
To the cold grave, heart-broken ? Tell me not 
Of fathers — I have none ! All else that breathes 
Hath known that natural love; the wolf is kind 



494 sterling's southern orator. 

To her vile cubs ; the little wren hath care 
For each small young one of her brood ; and thou — 
The word that widowed, orphaned me ! Henceforth 
My home shall be his grave ; and yet thou canst not — 
Father ! [Rushing into BienzVs arms.) 

Bie. Ay ! Dost call me father once again, my Claudia, 
Mine own sweet child ! 

Cla. O father ! pardon him ! 
Oh, pardon, pardon ! 'Tis my life I ask 
In his. Our lives, dear father ! 

Hie. Ho, Camillo ! 
Where loiters he? {Enter Camillo.) 

Camillo, take my ring ; 
Fly to the captain of the guard, Alberti; 
Bid him release Lord Angelo, 

Cla. Now bless thee, 
Bless thee, my father ! 

Bie. Fly, Camillo, fly! 
Why loiterest thou ? 

Cam. The ring ! 

(Rienzi gives the ring to Camillo. Exit Camillo.) 



CCCLXII. 

MILLER OF MANSFIELD.— Anonymous. 
King, Miller, Courtier. 

King. {Enter alone, wrapped in a cloak.) No, no, this 
can be no public road, that's certain. I have lost my way 
undoubtedly. Of what advantage is it now to be a king ? 
Night shows me no respect ; I cannot see better, nor walk 
so well as another man. When a king is lost in a wood, 
what is he more than other men ? His wisdom knows not 
which is north and which" is south ; his power a beggar's 
dog would bark at, and the beggar himself would not bow 
to his greatness. And yet how often are we puffed up with 
these false attributes ! Well, in losing the monarch, I have 
found the man. But, hark ! somebody sure is near. What 
were it best to do ? Will my majesty protect me ? No. 
Throw majesty aside, then, and let manhood do it. 



sterling's southern orator. 495 

(Enter the Miller.) 

Miller. I believe I hear the rogue. Who's there ? 

King. No rogue, I assure you. 

Miller. Little better, friend, I believe. Who fired that 
gun? 

King. Not I, indeed. 

Miller. You lie, I believe. 

King. (Aside.) Lie, lie ! How strange it seems to me to 
be talked to in this style ! (Aloud.) Upon my word, I 
don't, sir. 

Miller. Come, come, sirrah, confess. You have shot one 
of the king's deer, haven't you ? 

King. No, indeed ; I owe the king more respect. I heard 
a gun go off, to be sure, and was afraid some robbers might 
have been near. 

Miller. I am not bound to believe this, friend. Pray, 
who are you ? What's your name ? 

King. Name ! 

Miller. Name ! — ay, name. . You have a name, haven't 
you ? Where do you come from? What is your business 
here ? 

King. These are questions I have not been used to, honest 
man. 

Miller. May be so ; but they are questions no honest man 
would be afraid to answer ; so, if you can give no better 
account of yourself, I shall make bold to take you along 
with me, if you please. 

King. With you ! What authority have you to 

Miller. The king's authority. If I must give ^ou an ac- 
count, sir, I am John Cockle, the miller of Mansfield, one of 
his majesty's keepers in the forest of Sherwood ; and I will 
let no suspicious fellow pass this way, unless he can give a 
better account of himself than you have done, I promise you. 

King. Very well, sir. I am very glad to hear the king 
has so good an officer ; and, since I find you have his author- 
ity, I will give you a better account of myself, if you will 
do me the favor to hear it. 

Miller. You don't deserve it, I believe; but let's hear 
what you can say for yourself. 

King. I have the honor to belong to the king as well as 
you, and perhaps should be as unwilling to see any wrong 
done him. I came down with him to hunt in this forest, 



496 sterling's southern orator. 

and the chase leading us to-day a great way from home, I 
am benighted in this wood, and have lost my way. 

Miller. This does not sound well. If you have been 
a-hunting, pray where is your horse ? 

King. I have tired my horse so that he lay down under 
me, and I was obliged to leave him. 

Miller. If I thought I might believe this, now 

King. I am not used to lie, honest man. 

Miller. What ! do you live at court, and not lie ? That's 
a likely story, indeed ! 

King. Be that as it will, I speak truth now, I assure you ; 
and, to convince you of it, if you will attend me to Notting- 
ham, or give me a night's lodging in your house, here is 
something to pay you for your trouble — -{offering money) — 
and, if that is not sufficient, I will satisfy you in the morning 
to your utmost desire. 

Miller. Ay, now I am convinced you are a courtier : here 
is a little bribe for to-day, and a large promise for to-morrow, 
both in a breath. Here, take it again — John Cockle is no 
courtier. He can do what he ought without a bribe. 

King. Thou art a very extraordinary man, I must own, 
and I should be glad, methinks, to be further acquainted with 
thee. 

Miller. Prithee, don't thee and thou me at this rate. I 
suppose I am as good a man as yourself, at least. 

King. Sir, I beg pardon. 

Miller. Nay, I am not angry, friend ; only I don't love 
to be too familiar with you until I am satisfied as to your 
honesty. 

King. You are right. But what am I to do ? 

Miller. You may do what you please. You are twelve 
miles from Nottingham, and all the way through this thick 
wood ; but, if you are resolved upon going thither to-night, 
I will put you in the road, and direct you the best I can ; or, 
if you will accept of such poor entertainment as a miller can 
give, you shall be welcome to stay all night, and in the 
morning I will go with you myself. 

King. And cannot you go with me to-night ? 

Miller. I would not go with you to-night if you were the 
king himself. 

King. Then I must go with you, I think. 

(Enter a courtier, in haste.) 



sterling's southern orator. 497 

Courtier. Ah, is your majesty safe ? We have hunted 
the forest over to find you. 

Miller. How! are you the king ? {Kneels.) Your majesty 
■will pardon the ill usage you have received. (The King 
draws his sword.) His majesty surely will not kill a servant 
for doing his duty too faithfully. 

King. No, my good fellow. So far from having any thing 
to pardon, I am much your debtor. I cannot but think so 
good and honest a man will make a -worthy and honorable 
knight. Rise, Sir John Cockle, and receive this sword as a 
badge of knighthood, and a pledge of my protection ; and 
to support your nobility, and in some measure requite you 
for the pleasure you have done us, a thousand crowns a year 
shall be your revenue. 



CCCLXIII. 
BAFFLED REVENGE.— Shakespeare. 

( Ix this scene from the " Merchant of Venice," Shylock, 
a Jew, wishes to seeing the death of Antonio, by requiring 
the fulfilment of a bond, the forfeiture of which was a pound 
of flesh cut from nearest the heart, in case Antonio failed to 
pay the debt. Bassanio is the friend of Antonio. Portia is 
the wife of Bassanio, disguised as a lawyer from Padua.) 
(Enter Portia, dressed like a doctor of laws.) 

Duke. Give me your hand : came you from old Bellario ? 

Por. I did, my lord. 

Puke. You are welcome : take your place. 

Are you acquainted with the difference 
That holds this present question in the court ? 

Por. I am informed thoroughly of the cause. 
"Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew ? 

Puke. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth ! 

Por. Is your name Shylock? 

Shy. Shylock is my name. 

Por. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow ; 
Yet in such a rule, that the Venetian law 
Cannot impugn you, as you do proceed. — 
You stand within his danger, do you not? (To Antonio.) 

Ant. Ay, so he says. 



498 sterling's southern orator. 

Por. Do you confess the bond ? 

Ant. I do. 

Por. Then must the Jew be merciful. 

Shy. On what compulsion must I? tell me that. 

Por. The quality of mercy is not strained ; 
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown ; 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 
But mercy is above this sceptred sway, 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
It is an attribute to God himself; 
And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
Though justice be thy plea, consider this — 
That in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke Ijps much, 
To mitigate the justice of thy plea ; 
Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice 
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there. 

Shy. My deeds upon my head ! I crave the law, 
The penalty and forfeit of my bond. 

Por. Is he not able to discharge the money ? 

Pass. Yes, here I tender it for him in the court ; 
Yea, twice the sum : if that will not suffice, 
I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, 
On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart: 
If this will not suffice, it must appear 
That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you, 
Wrest once the law to your authority : 
To do a great right do a little wrong ; 
And curb this cruel devil of his will. 

Por. It must not be ; there is no power in Venice 
Can alter a decree established : 
'Twill be recorded for a precedent ; 
And many an error, by the same example, 
Will rush into the state : it cannot be. 



sterling's southern orator. 499 

Shy. A Daniel come to judgment ! yea, a Daniel ! 
O wise young judge, how do I honor thee ! 

Por. I pray you, let me look uptm the bond. 

Shy. Here it is, most reverend doctor, here it is. 
, Por. Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee. 

Shy. An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven : 
Shall I lay perjury upon my soul? 
No, not for Venice. 

Por. Why, this bond is forfeit ; 

And lawfully by this the Jew may claim 
A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off 
Nearest the merchant's heart : — Be merciful ; 
Take thrice thy money ; bid me tear the bond. 

Shy. When it is paid according to the tenor. — 
It doth appear, you are a worthy judge; 
You know the law, your exposition 
Hath been most sound : I charge you by the law, 
Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar, 
Proceed to judgment : by my soul I swear 
There is no power in the tongue of man 
To alter me : I stay here on my bond. 

Ant. Most heartily I do beseech the court 
To give the judgment. 

Por. Why, then, thus it is. 

You must prepare your bosom for his knife. 

Shy. O noble judge ! O excellent young man ! 

Por. For the intent and purpose of the law 
Hath full relation to the penalty, 
Which here appeareth due upon the bond. 

Shy. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge ! 
How much more elder art thou than thy looks ! 

Por. Therefore lay bare your bosom. 

Shy. Ay, his breast : 

So says the bond ; doth it not, noble judge ? 
Nearest his heart ; those are the very words. 

Por. It is so. Are there balance here, to weigh 
The flesh? 

Shy. I have them ready. 

Por. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, 
To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death. 

Shy. Is it so nominated in the bond ? 

Por. It is not so expressed ; but what of that ? 
'Twere good you do so much for charity. 



500 sterling's southern orator. 

Shy. I cannot find it ; 'tis not in the bond. 

Por. Come, merchant, have you any thing to say? 

Ant. But little; I am*armed, and well prepared. 
Give me your hand, Bassanio ; fare you well ! 
Repent not you that you shall lose your friend, 
And he repents not that he pays your debt ; 
For, if the Jew do cut but deep enough, 
I'll pay it instantly with all my heart. 

Por. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine; 
The court awards it, and the law doth give it. 

Shy. Most rightful judge ! 
' Por. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast; 
The law allows it, and the court awards it. 

Shy. Most learned judge ! A sentence ! come, prepare. 

Por. Tarry a little : there is something else. 
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ; 
The words expressly are, a pound of flesh : 
Take, then, thy bond ; take thou thy pound of flesh; 
But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 
Unto the state of Venice. 

Gratiano. O upright judge! — Mark, Jew! — O learned 
judge ! 

Shy. Is that the law ? 

Por. Thyself shalt see the act ; 

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured, 
Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest. 

Gra. O learned judge ! Mark, Jew ! a learned judge ! 

Shy. I take this offer, then ; pay the bond thrice, 
And let the Christian go. 

Pas. Here is the money ! 

Por. Soft ! 

The Jew shall have all justice ! soft ! no haste ! 
He shall have nothing but the penalty. 

Gra. O Jew ! an upright judge, a learned judge ! 

Por. Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh. 
Shed thou no blood : nor cut thou less, nor more, 
But just a pound of flesh. If thou takest more, 
Or less, than just a pound — be it but so much 
As makes it light or heavy in the substance, 
Or the division of the twentieth part 
Of one poor scruple ; nay, if the scale do turn 






<* STERLING S SOUTHERN ORATOR. 501 

But in the estimation of a hair — 

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate. 

Gra. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew ! 
Now infidel, I have thee on the hip. 

Por. Why doth the Jew pause ? Take thy forfeiture. 

Shy. Give me my principal, and let me go. 

Pas. I have it ready for thee ; here it is. 

Por. He hath refused it in the open court ; 
He shall have merely justice, and his bond. 

Gra. A Daniel, still say I ! a second Daniel ! 
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. 

Shy. Shall I not have barely my principal ? 

Por. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture, 
To be so taken at thy peril, Jew. 

Shy. Why, then, the devil give him good of it ! 
I'll stay no longer question. 

Por. Tarry, Jew : 

The law hath yet another hold on you. 
It is enacted in the laws of Venice, 
If it be proved against an alien, 
That, by direct or indirect attempts, 
He seek the life of any citizen, 
The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive 
Shall seize one half his goods ; the other half 
Comes to the privy coffer of the state ; 
And the offender's life lies in the mercy 
Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voiee. 
In which predicament, I say, thou standest ; 
For it appears, by manifest proceeding, 
That, indirectly, and directly too, 
Thou hast contrived against the very life 
Of the defendant; and thou hast incurred 
The danger formerly by me rehearsed. 
Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke. 

Gra. Beg that thou may'st have leave to hang thyself: 
And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state, 
Thou hast not left the value of a cord; 
Therefore thou must be hanged at the state's charge. 

Duke. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit, 
I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it : 
For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's ; 
The other half comes to the general state, 
Which humbleness may drive unto a fine. 



502 sterling's southern orator. 

Por. Ay, for the state ; not for Antonio. 

Shy. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that : 
You take my house, when you do take the prop 
That doth sustain my house ; you take my life, 
When you do take the means whereby I live. 

Por. What mercy can you render him, Antonio? 

Gra. A halter gratis ; nothing else ; for Heaven's sake 

Ant. So please my lord the duke, and all the court, 
To quit the fine for one half of his goods j 
I am content, so he will let me have 
The other half in use — to render it, 
Upon his death, unto the gentleman 
That lately stole his daughter ; 
Two things provided more — That for this favor 
He presently become a Christian ; 
The other, that he do record a gift, 
Here in the court, of all he dies possessed 
Unto his son Lorenzo, and his daughter. 

Puke. He shall do this ; or else I do recant 
The pardon, that I late pronounced here. 

Por. Aj't thou contented, Jew, what dost thou say ? 

Shy. I am content. 

Por. Clerk, draw a deed of gift. 

Shy. I pray you give me leave to go from hence : 
I am not well ; send the deed after me, 
And I will sign it. 

Puke. Gret thee gone, but do it. 



APPENDIX. 



LIST* OF SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITIONS. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SUBJECTS. 



1. Abraham. 

2. Joseph. 

3. Moses. 

4. Joshua. 

5. Miriam. 

6. Ruth. 

7. Boaz. 

8. Esther. 

9. David. 

10. Daniel. 

11. Samson. 

12. Solomon. 

13. Peter. 

14. Paul. 

15. Stephen. 

16. St. John. 

17. Alexander. 

18. Caesar. 

19. Hannibal. 

20. Demosthenes. 

21. Cicero. 

22. Mark Anthony. 

23. Nero. 

24. Caligula. 

25. Charlemagne. 

26. Virgil. 

27. Petrarch. 

28. Tasso. 

29. Pompey. 

30. Mohammed. 



31. William the Conqueror. 

32. Columbus. 

33. Sir Walter Raleigh. 

34. Sir George Somers. 

35. Captain John Smith. 

36. Pocahontas. 

37. Queen Elizabeth. 

38. Mary Queen of Scots. 

39. Maria Theresa. 

40. Empress Josephine. 

41. Queen Victoria. 

42. Mary Washington. 

43. Isabella of Spain. 

44. Bloody Mary. 

45. Lord Byron. 

46. Sir Walter Scott. 

47. Washington. 

48. Jefferson. 

49. Patrick Henry. 

50. Andrew Jackson. 

51. Stonewall Jackson. 

52. Daniel Webster. 

53. Henry Clay. 

54. John C. Calhoun. 

55. Benjamin Franklin. 

56. General Greene. 

57. John Milton. 

58. Shakespeare. 

59. Mrs. Hemans. 

CO. Florence Nightingale. 



501 APPENDIX. 



HISTORICAL NARRATIVES. 

61. Siege of Troy. » 

62. Deluge. 

63. The Journeyings of the Israelites. 

64. Downfall of Babylon. 

65. The Norman Conquest. 

66. The Invasion of Britain by tne Romans. 

67. The Crusades. 

68. Discovery of America. 

69. Settlement at Jamestown. 

70. Persecution of Roger Williams. 

71. The American Revolution. 

72. The French Revolution. 

73. Battle of Guilford Court-House. 

74. Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 

75. The Continental Congress in 1776. % 

76. The Invasion of Russia by Napoleon. 

77. Sergeant Champ's Attempt to capture Benedict Arnold. 

78. The Destruction of Jerusalem. 

79. The Conquest of Mexico by Cortez. 

80. The History of Jonah. 

81. David and Goliath. 

DESCRIPTIVE. 

82. Mountain Scenery. 

83. Niagara Falls. . 

84. Mount Washington. 

85. The Natural Bridge of Virginia. 

86. Pilot Mountain. 

87. Hickory-Nut Gap. 

88. The Peaks of Otter. 

89. A Thunder-Storm in the Mountains. 

90. A Snow-Storm. 

91. A Landscape. 

92. A Storm at Sea. 

93. The Everglades of Florida. 

94. Prairie. 

95. New-Orleans. 

96. The Mississippi River. 

97. Lake George. 

98. The Dismal Swamp in Virginia. 

99. Life in the Country. 
100. Description of Palestine. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



101. Spring. 

102. Summer. 

103. Winter. 

104. Flowers. 



APPENDIX. 505 



105. Night. 

106. Melancholy. 

107. Intemperance and its Effects. 

108. Ambition. 

109. Self-Government. 

110. Patience. 

111. Melancholy. 

112. The Miseries of War. 

113. State Pride. 

114. Chivalry. 

115. Gambling. 

116. Evil Company. 

117. Contentment. 

118. The Starry Heavens. 

119. The Mariner's Compass. 

120. The Ruins of Time. 

121. Old Age. 

122. Female Heroism. 

123. True Courage. 

124. The History of a Shoe. 

125. The History of the Bible. 

126. A Mirror a Century Old. 

127. The History of a School-Room. 

128. My Mother's Picture. 

129. The Ocean. 

130. A Volcanic Eruption. 

131. The Rainbow. 

132. Twilight. 

133. The Art of Printing. 

134. The Steam-Engine. 

135. The Electric Telegraph. 

136. Novelty. 

137. Newspapers. 

138. Moon. 

139. The Life of a Soldier. 

140. The River of Time. 

141. The Study of History. 

142. The Poetry of the Bible. 

143. True Politeness. 

144. Female Influence. 

145. Humility. 

146. Music. 

147. The Pleasures of Memory. 

148. Peace ! be still ! 

149. Poetry. 

150. Imagination. 

151. Benevolence. 

152. Genius. 

153. Intrepidity. 

154. Ignorance. 

155. Perseverance. 

156. Riches. 

22 



508 APPENDIX. 

■ 

157. True Greatness. 

158. Idleness. 

159. The Miser. 

160. Revenge. 

161. The Art of Writing. 

162. Parental Affection. 

163. Philanthropy. 

164. Old Things have passed away. 

165. Generosity. 

166. Honor. 

167. The Power of Association. 

168. The Study of the Classics. 

169. The Attraction of Gravitation. 

170. The Art of Painting. 

171. Forgiveness. 

172. " Let there be Light! " 

173. Dissipation. 

174. Cheerfulness. 

175. Gardening. 

176. Affectation. 

177. Eden. 

178. The Freedom of the Press. 

179. Silent Influence. 

180. The True End of Knowledge. 

181. The Influence of Local Association. 

182. Works of Nature superior to those of Art. 

183. Fortitude of the Indian Character. 

184. The Influence of the Past. 

185. A Mother's Love. 

186. The Providence of God in All Things. 

187. The Stranger's Grave. 

188. Make Hay while the Sun Shines. 

189. The Right Improvement of Time. 

190. The Present Hour alone is Man's. 

191. The Race is not to the Swift. 

192. Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed 

193. Only a Fool turns aside to Deceit. 

194. A Soft Answer turneth away Wrath. 

195. Time brings All Things to Light. 

196. The Love of Money the Root of all Evil. 

197. Economy is the true Philosopher's Stone. 

198. Herculaneum and Pompeii. 

199. Decline of the Roman Empire. 

200. The Force of Prejudice. 

201. The Difficulty of Overcoming Bad Habits. 

202. Life is a Voyage. 

203. God seen in all the Works of Creation. 

204. Superiority of Moral over Natural Beauty. 

205. Insufficiency of Genius without Virtue. 

206. The Contented are rich ; the Rich are seldom contented. 

207. The Scholar's Hope. 

208. The Red Man's Wrongs. 



APPENDIX. 507 



209. Joan of Arc. 

210. Sir Isaac Newton. 

211. Oliver Cromwell. 

212. Reading a Means of Intellectual Improvement. 

213. Life is short and Art is long. 

214. Few and precious are the words which the lips of wisdom utter. 

215. Error is a hardy plant, it nourishes in every soil. 

216. Be this, then, a lesson to thy soul, that thou reckon nothing worth- 

less. 

217. Cast off the weakness of regret, and gird thee to redeem thy loss. 

218. Power is seldom innocent, and envy is the yoke-fellow of emi- 

nence. 

219. Trifles lighter than straws are levers in the building up of char- 

acter. 

220. Memory is not wisdom. 

221. Law hath dominion over all things, both mind and matter. 

222. God is the origin of order, and the first example of His precept. 

223. Be resolute, but not rebellious. 

224. Society is a chain of obligations. 

225. Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride mineth deeper. 

226. Experience teacheth many things, and all men are his scholars. 

227. Frail art thou, O man ! as a bubble on the breaker. 

228. Angels are round the good man to catch the incense of his 

prayers. 

229. Zeal without judgment is an evil, though it be zeal unto good. 

230. Man hath found out inventions to cheat him of the weariness of life. 

231. Early piety has many advantages. 

232. The vanity of human grandeur. 

233. No man lives for himself alone. 
334. The soothing power of Music. 

235. The Good and the True only endure. 

236. Example is more powerful than precept. 

237. The Moral Sublime. 

238. The Moral Beautiful. 

239. American Literature. 

240. Shall all things else be mystery, and God alone be understood ? 

241. Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance. 

242. Better to read little with thought, than much with levity. 

243. Speech is the golden harvest that followeth the flowering of 

thought. 

244. Books are the monuments of mind, the concrete wisdom of the 

wisest. 

245. Nothing but may be better, and every better might be best. 

246. Acquaint thee with thyself, O man 1 so shalt thou be humble. 

247. Choose thy friend discreetly. 

248. Lorn ! — what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear ! 

249. A wise man in a crowded street winneth his way by gentleness. 

250. The crisis of a man's destiny is now — a still recurring danger. 

251. To-morroio is that lamp upon the marsh which a traveller never 

reacheth. 

252. The dignity and responsibility of authorship. 

253. Charity sitteth on a fair hill-top, blessing far and near. 



508 APPENDIX. 

254. Beauty is openness and strength in pure, high-minded youth. 

255. Mere beauty of person is the superficial polish of the statue. 

256. Flattery sticketh like a burr, holding to the soil with anchors. 

257. Praise is good, and honor a treasure to be hoarded. 

258. Godliness and contentment are the pillars of felicity. 

259. Life is a strange avenue of various trees and flowers. 

260. Confidence is the conqueror of men. 

261. All is vanity which is not honesty. 

262. " Beware of desperate steps ; the darkest day, 

Live till to-morrow, will have passed away." 

263. " There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will." 

264. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate. 

265. " Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us 

To see oursels as ithers see us." 

266. " Sweet are the uses of adversity, 

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 

267. " And this our life 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 

268. There is no place like home, be it ever so humble. 

269. " The bolt that strikes the towering cedar dead, 

Oft passes harmless o'er the hazel's head." 

270. " Who by repentance is not satisfied 

Is not of heaven nor earth." 

271. " Honor and shame from no condition rise : 

Act well your part ; there all the honor lies." 

272. " Good name, in man or woman, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls." 

273. Justice may sleep, but never dies. 

274. " Man yields to custom as he bows to fate, 

In all things ruled — mind, body, and estate. 

275. " Experience is the school 

Where man learns wisdom." 

276. All is not gold that glitters. 

277. " All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players." 

278. " Our doubts are traitors, 

And make us lose the good we oft might win, 
By fearing to attempt." 

279. " The purest treasure mortal times afford 

Is spotless reputation ; that away, 

Men are but gilded loam or painted clay." 

280. " The time of life is short ; 

To spend that shortness basely were too long.'' 

281. " Men's evil manners live in brass ; 

Their virtues we write in water." 

282. " The gods are just, and of our vices 

Make instruments to scourge us." 

283. " Who pants for glory finds but short repose , 

A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows." 



APPENDIX. 509 

284. "Mute 

The camel labors witli the heaviest load, 
And the wolf dies in silence." 

285. " And history with all her volumes vast 

Hath but one page." 

286. " First freedom and then glory — when that fails 

Wealth, vice, corruption — barbarism at last." 

287. " Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless millions mourn." 

288. Search the Scriptures. 

289. Proof afforded by science of a great, intelligent First Cause. 

290. Decision of character. 

291. By others' faults wise men learn to correc + their own. 

292. Health is the vital principle of bliss. 

293. The pleasures of a cultivated taste. 

294. " Better bear the ills we have 

Than fly to those we know not of." 

295. Let honesty's unblushing face be shaded with the mantle of hu- 

mility. 

296. A rough diamond is better than the polished paste. 

297. Many a fair flower is burdened with preposterous appellatives. 

298. Look to thy soul, man ! for none can be surety for his brother. 

299. Man, thou art immortal- ! 

800. God, from a beautiful necessity, is love in all He doeth. 

301. Death in Adam, life in Christ — the curse hung upon the cross. 

202. Death, the cold usurer, shall seize his bonded debtor. 

303. " Purity of motive and nobility of mind shall rarely condescend 

To prove its right, and prate of wrongs." 

304. " There is a blameless love of fame, springing from desire of j ustice. 

305. '* To number every mystery were to sum the sum of all things." 

306. Character grows day by day, and all things aid it in unfolding. 

307. Imagination is not thought, neither is fancy reflection. 

308. There is nothing so true that the damps of error have not 

warped it. • 

309. Refinement a national benefit. 

210. The dignity and responsibility of the* teacher's vocation. 

311. A rolling stone gathers no moss. 

312. He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a 

city. 

313. Charity is an essential part of true religion. 

314. It is folly to strive to please every body. 

315. Truth is invincible if left to grapple with error on equal terms, 

316. The pulpit as a field for eloquence. 

317. The future of our country. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION. 

818. Are fictitious writings more beneficial than injurious? 

319. Was the feudal system beneficial to civilization ? 

320. Ought executions for crime to be in public ? 

821. Ought secret political societies to be tolerated? 

822. Is emulation a wholesome stimulant in education ? 



510 APPENDIX. 

823. Is a protective tariff true policy in the Government of the United 
States ? 

324. Is the doctrine of State rights the true theory of the American 

Government ? 

325. Is the allegiance of the citizen due primarily to the State rather 

than the general government ? 

326. Is the story of the Trojan war credible ? 

327. Is universal suffrage expedient or wise ? 

328. Ought judges to be elected by the people ? 

829. Ought the state to provide for the education of all the children 
within her jurisdiction ? 

330. Can the immortality of the soul be proved from the light of nature 

alone ? 

331. Ought religious institutions to be supported by law? 

832. Ought the support of the poor to be provided for by the govern- 
ment ? 

333. Should the course of study in academies and colleges be the same 

for all pupils ? 

334. Was Bonaparte greater in the field than in the cabinet ? 

335. Can the existence and attributes of God be proved by the light of 

nature ? 

336. Is morality separable from religion ? 

337. Was the execution of the Due D'Enghien justifiable ? 

338. Ought the United States to establish a national system of educa- 

tion? 

339. Was the execution of the Earl of Essex justifiable ? 

340. Under the Constitution of the United States, are representation and 

taxation inseparable ? 

341. Was Mary Queen of Scots justly implicated in the murder of 

Lord Darnley ? 

342. Ought representatives to be bound by the will of their constitu- 

ents? 

343. Ought the sale of ardent spirits, to be used as a beverage, to be 

prohibited by law ? # 

344. Has sectarianism done more to advance than retard the progress 

of Christianity ? 

345. Is there such a thing as disinterested benevolence ? 

346. Was the career of Napoleon Bonaparte productive of more goo 

than evil in Europe ? 

347. Is a republican form of government favorable to the cultivation of 

literature and science. 

348. Ought the right of suffrage to be dependent on any property 

qualification ? 

349. Ought military schools to be encouraged ? 

350. Was the French Revolution beneficial to the liberties of Europe ? 

351. Do mechanical inventions improve the condition of the laboring 

classes ? 

352. Is it expedient for Congress to pass an international copyright 

law? 

353. Do savage nations possess a right to the soil ? 

354. Is the mind of woman inferior to that of man ? 

355. Did the crusades have a beneficial influence on Europe ? 






APPENDIX. 511 

856. Had tlie Olympic games a favorable influence on ancient Greece ? 

357. Is the existence of political parties beneficial to a state ? 

358. Is a lawyer j ustifiable in defending a bad cause ? 

359. Is political corruption more injurious in government than politi- 

cal fanaticism ? 

360. Did true patriotism require Brutus to engage in the conspiracy 

against Caesar ? 

361. Is the pen mighter than the sword ? 

362. Is conscience in all cases a correct moral guide ? 

363. Ought the rate of interest on money to be regulated by law ? 

364. Ought the man who kills his antagonist in a duel to be punished 

as a murderer ? 

365. Ought clergymen to be excluded from civil offices by law ? 

366. Ought an infidel to be allowed to testify in a court of justice ? 

367. Does the mind always think ? 

368. Ought foreign emigration to be encouraged by the Southern 

States? 

369. Was the political career of Oliver Cromwell beneficial to Eng- 

land? 

370. Was the execution of Charles I. justifiable? 

871. Would the equalization of property conduce to the happiness of 
society ? 

372. Is language a human invention ? 

373. Was the death of Csesar beneficial to Rome ? 

374. Was the reign of Henry VIII. advantageous to the liberties of 

England ? 

375. Was the execution of Mary Queen of Scots justifiable ? 

376. Was Cromwell a patriot? 

377. Was Alexander a greater general than Napoleon ? 

378. Should the laws of justice ever be set aside to favor the cause of 

humanity ? 

379. Can any process of reasoning take place in the mind without the 

use of language, orally or mentally ? 

380. Is science more indebted to Lord Bacon than to Sir Isaac New- 

ton? 

381. Is ingratitude worse than avarice? 

382. Was the Danish invasion a benefit to England ? 

383. Is the multiplication of works of fiction favorable to the formation 

of a permanent literature ? 

384. Ought Charles I. to be regarded as a Christian martyr? 

385. Does history justify Pope in calling Bacon " the meanest of man- 

kind " ? 

386. Were the charges against the Earl of Strafford fairly proven on 

his trial ? 

387. Is extension of territory dangerous to the permanency of the pre- 

sent government of the United State's ? 

388. Was Cromwell superior to Napoleon in the general character of 

his administration ? 

389. In great national struggles has any one a right to be neutral ? 

390. Is the art of criticism necessary to the development of genius ? 

391. Is it true policy in the government to give land to actual settlers? 

392. Was the government justifiable in removing the Indians from 

their homes ? 



512 APPENDIX. 

393. Is teaching properly a science ? 

394. Are civilized nations justified in seizing and occupying countries 

inhabited by savages ? 

395. Would absolute freedom of opinion be a blessing ? 
398. Is increase of wealth favorable to refined morality ? 

397. Are the dictates of a man's conscience of higher authority than 

human law ? 

398. Ought the state to enforce the education of all the children with- 

in its jurisdiction '? 

399. Do public amusements benefit society ? 

400. Did Greece contribute more to civilization than Rome? 

401. Is Webster a better authority in orthography than Worcester? 

402. Does the mind ever entirely lose an idea it has once possessed ? 

403. Do the Scriptures justify us in believing that the Jews will be re- 

stored to Palestine before the close of the world's history ? 

404. Should lotteries be prohibited by law ? 

405. Is the drunkard a greater curse to society than the gambler? 

406. Does the pulpit afford a better field for eloquence than the bar ? 

407. Is truth invincible, if left to grapple with error on equal terms ? 

408. Do parents exercise a greater influence than teachers in forming 

the character of the young ? 

409. Does climate have any effect on national character ? 

410. Are we responsible for our dreams ? 

411. Is the literature of a nation influenced by its form of govern- 

ment? 

412. Are games of chance allowable as an amusement ? 

413. Is phrenology entitled to rank among the sciences ? 

414. Should foreign emigration be encouraged ? 

415. Is trial by judges preferable to trial by jury? 

416. Is " lynch law" ever justifiable ? 

417. Would Ireland be benefited by separation from England ? 

418. Are aggressive wars ever justifiable ? 

419. Is it true that " man is the architect of his own fortunes" ? 

420. Should text-books for schools be in the form of question and 

answer ? 

421. Are Christians justifiable in going to law with each other ? 

422. Ought imprisonment for debt to be abolished ? 

423. Was France benefited by the career of Napoleon ? 

424. Do the principles of the Peace Society deserve support ? 

425. Are promises made under constraint binding on the conscience ? 

426. Is it true that " it makes no difference what a man's opinions may 

be, provided his life is right" ? 

427. Is the assertion that " all men are born free and equal," true ? 

428. Should normal schools be supported by the state ? 

429. Is a man responsible for his opinions ? 

430. Was the Roman congest beneficial to Britain ? 

431. Ought government officers to be confined exclusively to native-born 

citizens ? 

432. Should foreigners be permitted to enjoy the right of suffrage ? 

433. Has the Papal Church contributed to the progress of civilization ? 

434. Has the human race been benefited more by moral than by phy- 

sical courage ? 



APPENDIX. 513 

435. Has Homer contributed more to the genius of poetry than Dante ? 

436. Has Milton contributed more to the genius of poetry than Shake- 

speare ? 

437. Should monopolies in trade be allowed ? 

438. Do men suffer more from real evils than from imaginary ? 

439. Is a public education preferable to a private one ? 

440. Has the British government in India been beneficial to the natives ? 

441. Is Hume a greater historian than Gibbon ? 

442. Are the moderns superior to the ancients in eloquence ? 

443. Is the world advancing in morality ? 

444. Are the poems of Ossian authentic ? 

445. Ought Cranmer to be ranked among Christian martyrs ? 

446. Was Napoleon's banishment to St. Helena justifiable? 

447. Ought the national government to make appropriations for inter- 

nal improvements ? 

448. Is the expectation of reward a greater incentive to exertion than 

the fear of punishment ? 

449. Does the study of the physical sciences conduce more to mental 

development than that of the classics ? 

450. Are light and heat material agents ? 

451. Is it possible to ascertain the exact location of the ancient Ophir ? 

452. Is cotton as an article of commerce more valuable than corn ? 

453. Is there any ground to believe, that the moon exerts an influence 

upon certain maniacs ? 

454. Has the common belief that the changes of the moon affect the 

weather any foundation in science ? 

455. Have we reason to believe that the rainbow appeared before the 

deluge ? 

456. Is political corruption the necessary result of republican govern- 

ment ? 

457. Are republican institutions favorable to the highest order of states- 

manship ? 

458. Is affectation as vile as hypocrisy ? 

459. Are the moderns superior to the ancients in the power and deli- 

cacy of satire ? 

460. Was the divorce of the Empress Josephine justifiable ? 

461. Ought any permanent support to be provided for the poor ? 

462. Ought every one of unsound mind to be exempted from all legal 

responsibility for his conduct ? 



514 APPENDIX 



INTRODUCTION TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

The second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May, 
1776. The session was one of great and permanent interest. The in- 
dependence of the colonies had been agitated in the primary assemblies 
of the people ; but now the subject was introduced into the Congress. 

On the seventh of June, Kichard Henry Lee, of Virginia, presented a 
resolution, in which it was declared, " that these united colonies are, 
and of right ought to be, free and independent states ; that they are 
absolved from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that all political 
connection between the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally 
dissolved/' This resolution was advocated by the mover in a speech of 
great eloquence, and seconded by John Adams in an argument dis- 
tinguished by its power and patriotic enthusiasm. 

On the second of July, a committee was appointed to draft a Declara- 
tion according to the spirit of Mr. Lee's resolution. This committee 
consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger 
Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The two gentlemen first named 
were appointed a sub-committee to draw up the Declaration. This im- 
mortal document was penned by Mr. Jefferson. 

The Declaration thus prepared was taken up on the fourth of July, 
1776 — a day never to be forgotten — and passed unanimously ; it was 
then ordered to be handsomely engrossed on parchment, and signed by 
all the members of the Congress. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

" This Declaration should be written in letters of gold, and should be placed in the 
hands and engraven on the hearts of every youth of our country.' 7 

Whett, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with 
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate 
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God en- 
title them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that 
they should declare the causes which impel them to such separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness ; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new 
government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing 
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect 
their safety and happiness. Prudence indeed would dictate that gov- 
ernments long established should not be changed for light and tran- 
sient causes ; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind 
are more inclined to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right 






APPENDIX. 515 

themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably 
the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute des- 
potism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, 
and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been 
the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and such is now the necessity 
which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. 
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of re- 
peated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the estab- 
lishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let 
facts be exhibited to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary 
for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and press- 
ing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent 
should be obtained ; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected 
to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large 
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of 
representation in the legislature — a right inestimable to them, and for- 
midable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom- 
fortable, and distant from the repositories of their public records, for 
the sole purpose of fatiguing them into a compliance with his mea- 
sures. 

He has dissolved representative bodies repeatedly, for opposing with 
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolution, to cause others 
to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, 
have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remain- 
ing in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from 
without and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states ; for 
that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners ; re- 
fusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising 
the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent 
to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of 
their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new officers, and sent hither swarms 
of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without 
the consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to 
the civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign 
to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his as- 
sent to their pretended acts of legislation. 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. 

For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any mur- 
ders which they commit on the inhabitants of these states. 



516 APPENDIX. 

For cutting off our trade with, all parts of the world. 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent. 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury. 

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences. 

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging 
its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument 
for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies. 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, 
and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments. 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves in- 
vested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protec- 
tion, and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, 
and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, 
to complete the work of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun 
with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the 
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized 
nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high 
seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of 
their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored 
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian sa- 
vages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction 
of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

- In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in 
the most humble terms ; our repeated petitions have been answered 
only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by 
every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free 
people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We 
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature 
to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have appealed 
to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, 
by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which 
would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They 
too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must 
therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, 
and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind— enemies in war, in 
peace friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, 
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of 
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by 
the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish 
and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES : and that they are absolved 
from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connec- 
tion between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be 
totally dissolved ; and that, as free and independent states, they have 



APPENDIX. 517 



full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish 
commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states 
may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm 
reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to 
each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 

The members of the Congress of 1776 who signed this Declaration 
were as follows : 

New-Hampshire. — Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew 
Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay. — John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, 
Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry. 

Rhode Island. — Samuel Hopkins, William Ellery. 

Connecticut. — Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Wil- 
liams, Oliver Wolcott. 

New- York. — William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis 
Morris. 

New- Jersey. — Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkin- 
son, John Hart, Abrani Clark. 

Pennsylvania. — Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, 
John Morton, George Clyrner, James Smith, George Taylor, James 
Wilson, George Ross. 

Delaware. — Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean. 

Maryland. — Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles 
Carroll, of Carrollton. 

Virginia. — George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, 
Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter 
Braxton. 

North-Carolina. — William Hooper, Joseph Hughes, John Penn. 

South-Carolina. — Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas 
Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia. — Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton. 



518 



APPENDIX 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

(Framed during the year 178T by a convention of delegates, who met at Philadelphia, from 
the States oJjtfevv-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New- York, New-Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Dmware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, Georgia.) 

Preamble. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a 
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the gen- 
eral welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution 
for the United States of America. 



Legislative 
powers. 

Its source. 



Eligibility of 
representa- 
tives. 



Manner and 
ratio of rep- 
resentation 
and taxa- 
tion. 



Vacancies. 



Speaker. 
Impeach- 
ments. 



ARTICLE I. 

Sec. I. — All legislative powers here granted shall be vest- 
ed in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of 
a Senate and House of Representatives. 

Sec. II. — 1. The House of Representatives shall be com- 
posed of members chosen every second year by the people of 
the several states, and the electors in each state shall have 
the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous 
branch of the state legislature. 

2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have 
attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years 
a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elect- 
ed, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen. 

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several states which may be included within this 
Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall 
be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 
including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and ex- 
cluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. 
The actual enumeration shall be made within three years 
after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, 
and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such man- 
ner as they shall by law direct. The number of representa- 
tives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each 
state shall have at least one representative ; and, until such 
enumeration shall be made, the State of New-Hampshire shall 
be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Is- 
land and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New- 
York six, New-Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware 
one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North-Carolina five, South- 
Carolina five, and Georgia three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any 
state, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of 
election to fill such vacancies. 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker 
and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeach- 
ment. 



APPENDIX. 519 

Sec. III. — 1. The Senate of the United States shall be Senators, 
composed of two senators from each state, chosen by the two from 
legislature thereof, for six years ; and each senator shall have each state * 
one vote. 

2. Immediately after they shall be assembled, in conse- Arrange- 
quence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally I ^ er ! t f01 ' a 

m choice of onp 

as may be into three classes. The seats of the senators third every 
of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year. 
second year ; of the second class at the expiration of the fourth 
year ; and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth 
year, so that one third may be chosen every second year ; 
and if vacancies happen by resignation or otherwise during 
the recess of the legislature of any state, the executive there- 
of may make temporary appointments, until the next meet- 
ing of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacan- 
cies. 

3. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attain- Eligibility to 
ed to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen office - 

of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an 
inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen. 

4. The vice-president of the United States shall be presi- Presiding of- 
dent of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be ficer - 
equally divided. 

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a 
president pro tempore, in the absence of the vice-president, or 
when he shall exercise the office of president of the United 
States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeach- Power of 
ments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on parchments' 
oath or affirmation. When the president of the United States a nd 

is tried, the chief justice shall preside: and no person shall 
be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the 
members present. 

7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend fur- Penalty. 
ther than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold 

and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United 
States ; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable 
and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, 
according to law. 

Sec. IV. — 1. The times, places, and manner of holding elec- Elections. 
tions for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in 
each state by the legislature thereof ; but the Congress may, 
at*any time by law, make or alter such regulations, except as 
to the places of choosing senators. 

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, Meeting of 
and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, Congress, 
unless they shall by law appoint a different day. 

Sec. V. — 1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, 
returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a major- 
ity of each shall constitute a quorum to do business ; but a J he ™ organ- 
smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be lza ion ' 
authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in 



520 APPENDIX 

sucli manner and under such penalties as eacli house may- 
provide. 
Rules, 2. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, 

punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the 
concurrence of two thirds, expel a member. 

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and 
from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as 
may, in their judgment, require secrecy ; and the yeas and 
nays of the members of either house, on any question, shall, 
at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the 
journals, 
and adjourn- 4. Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, 
ment. without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than 

three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two 
houses shall be sitting. 
Compensa- Sec. VI. — 1. The senators and representatives shall re- 
priviieges ce i ye a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by 
law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. 
They shall, in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of 
peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at 
the session of their respective houses, and in going to and 
returning from the same ; and for any speech or debate in 
either house they shall not be questioned in any other 
place. 
Plurality of 2. No senator or representative shall, during the time for 
offices which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under 

the authority of the United States, which shall have been 
created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been in- 
creased* during such time ; and no person holding any office 
under the United States shall be a member of either house 
during his continuance in "office. 
Origin of Sec. VII. — 1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate 
bllIs » in the House of Representatives ; but the Senate may pro- 

pose or concur with amendments, as on other bills. 

2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Repre- 
sentatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be 
presented to the president of the United States ; if he ap- 
prove, he shall sign it ; but if not, he shall return it, with 
his objections, to that house in which it shall have origin- 
ated, who shall enter the objections at large on their jour- 
their course nal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsidera- 
in becoming tion, two thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill,„it 
shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other 
house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered; and if 
approved by two thirds of that house, it shall become a law. 
Bat in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be deter- 
mined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons vot- 
ing for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal 
of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned 
by the president within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it 
shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in 
like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress, by 



APPENDIX, 521 

tlieir adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall 
not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concur- Approval 
rence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be*"£ ™ t0 
necessary, (except on a question of adjournment,) shall be 
presented to the president of the United States, and before 
the same shall take effect shall be approved by him ; or, be- 
ing disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of 
the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the 
rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 

Sec. VIII. — The Congress shall have power — 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, impost, and excises ; to 0fthe duties 
pay the debts and provide for the common defence and gen- of^co^ess. 
eral welfare of the United States ; but all duties, imposts, ° 
and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States. 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among 
the several states, and with the Indian tribes. 

4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uni- 
form laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the 
United States. 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of for- 
eign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the 
securities and current coin of the United States. 

7. To establish post-offices and post roads. 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts by 
securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the ex- 
clusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court. 

10. To dafine and punish piracies and felonies committed 
on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations. 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, 
and make rules concerning captures on land or water. 

1.2. To raise and support armies ; but no appropriation of 
money to that use shall be for a longer term than two 
years. 

13. To provide and maintain a navy. 

14. To make rules for the government and regulation of 
the land and naval forces. 

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the 
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel inva- 
sions. 

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the 
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be em- 
ployed in the service of the United States, reserving to the 
states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the 
authority of training the militia according to the discipline 
prescribed by Congress. 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatso- 
ever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as 
may, by cession of particular states, and tfee acceptance of 



522 



APPENDIX 



Personal 
taxes. 



Right of 
trial. 



Attainder. 
Capitation. 



Commercial 
revenue. 



Treasury. 



Interdiction 
of titles. 



Conserva- 
tion of pow- 
ers vested in 
the Union. 



Further de- 
fined. 



Congress, become the seat of the government of the United 
States, and to exercise like authority over all places pur- 
chased by the consent of the legislature of the state in 
which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, maga- 
zines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings; 
and, 

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and pro- 
per for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and 
all other powers vested by this constitution in the govern- 
ment of the United States, or in any department or office 
thereof. 

Sec IX. — 1. The migration or importation of such per- 
sons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to 
admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the 
year one thousand eight hundred and eight ; but a tax or 
duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding 
ten dollars for each person. 

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be 
suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, 
the public safety may require it. 

3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in 
proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore direct- 
ed to be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from 
any state. No preference shall be given, by any regulation 
of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one state over those 
of another ; nor shall vessels bound to or from one state be 
obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. 

6. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in con- 
sequence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular 
statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all 
public money shall be published from time to time. 

7. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United 
States ; and no person holding any office of profit or trust 
under them shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of 
any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, 
from any king, prince, or foreign state. 

Sec X. — 1. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, 
or confederation ; grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin 
money ; emit bills of credit ; make any thing but gold and 
silver coin a tender in payment of debts ; pass any bill of 
attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation 
of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 

2. No state- shall, without the consent of Congress, lay 
any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what 
may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection 
laws ; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by 
any state on imports and exports shall be for the use of the 
treasury of the United States ; and all such laws shall be 
subject to the revision and control of Congress. No state 
shall, without thaiconsent of Congress, lay any duty en ton- 



APPENDIX. 523 

nage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter 
into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a 
foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or 
in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 

ARTICLE II. 

Sec. I. — 1. The executive power shall be vested in a presi-The chief 
dent of the United States of America. He shall hold his magistrate, 
office during the term of four years, and, together with the 
vice-president, chosen for the same term, be elected as 
follows : 

2. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legisla- The manner 
ture thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the°. f his elec * 
whole number of senators and representatives to which the tlon 

state may be entitled in the Congress ; but no senator, or rep- 
resentative, or person holding an office of trust or profit un- 
der the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 

3. The electors shall meet in their respective states, and b y tn e peo- 
vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not ple » 

be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves ; and they 
shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the num- 
ber of votes for each ; which list they shall sign and certify, 
and transmit, sealed, to the seat of government of the United 
States, directed to the president of the Senate. The presi- 
dent of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and 
House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the 
votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest 
number of votes shall be the president, if such number be a 
majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if 
there be more than one who have such majority, and have 
an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives by the House 
shall immediately choose, by ballot, one of them for presi- of R epre- 
dent ; and if no person have a majority, then from the five sen -" reB « 
highest on the list the said house shall, in like manner, choose 
the president. But in choosing the president, the votes shall 
be taken by states, the representation from each state having 
one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a mem- 
ber or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority 
of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, 
after the choice of the president, the person having the an a f the 
greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the vice- vice-presi- 
president. But if there should remain two or more who have dent# 
equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them, by ballot, the 
vice-president. 

4. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the 
electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes ; 
which day shall be the same throughout the United States. 

5. No person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of Require- 
the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitu-" 101 ^ for 
tion, shall be eligible to the office of president ; neither shall ce * 
any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained 



524 



APPENDIX. 



Compensa- 
tion and 



oath of of- 
fice. 



His duties 



the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident 

within the United States. 

Proviso in 6 * In case of tlle removal of tne president from office, or of 

case of death his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers 

or removal, and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the 

vice-president ; and the Congress may, by law, provide for 

the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability both of 

the president and vice-president, declaring what officer shall 

then act as president ; and such officer shall act accordingly, 

until the disability be removed, or a president shall be elected. 

7. The president shall, at stated times, receive for his ser- 
vices a compensation which shall neither be increased nor 
diminished during the period for which he shall have been 
elected ; and he shall not receive, within that period, any other 
emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

8. Before he enters on the execution of his office he shall 
take the following oath or affirmation : 

" I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully exe- 
cute the office of president of the United States, and will, to 
the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the con- 
stitution of the United States." 

Sec. II. — 1. The president shall be commander-in-chief of 
the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia 
of the several states, when called into the actual service 
of the United States ; he may require the opinion, in writ- 
ing, of the principal officer in each of the executive depart- 
ments upon any subject relating to the duties of their re- 
spective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves 
and pardons for offences against the United States, except 
in cases of impeachment. 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the 
senators present concur ; and he shall nominate, and by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint am- 
bassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, judges of the 
supreme court, and all other officers of the United States 
whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, 
and which shall be established by law. But the Congress 
may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers 
as they think proper in the president alone, in the courts of 
law, or in the heads of departments, 
filling vacan- 3. The president shall have power to fill up all vacancies 
cies, an ^^ ma ^ } ia pp en d ur i n g the recess of the Senate, by grant- 
ing commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next 
session. 

Sec. III. — He shall, from time to time, give to the Con- 
gress information of the state of the Union, and recommend 
to their consideration such measures as he shall judge neces- 
sary and expedient ; he may, on extraordinary occasions, 
convening convene both houses, or either of them ; and in case of dis- 
of Congress, agreement between them with respect to the time of ad- 
journment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall 



and powers 
in making 
treaties, 



APPENDIX. 525 

think proper ; he shall receive ambassadors and other public 
ministers ; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United 
States. 

Sec. IV. — The president, vice-president, and all civil offi- Removal 
cers of the United States, shall be removed from office on from office - 
impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other 
high crimes and misdemeanors. 

ARTICLE III. 

Sec. I. — The judicial power of the United States shall be The judici- 
vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as ary t v a ^ d 
the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish, investiture. 
The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall 
hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated 
times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall 
not be diminished during their continuance in office. 

Sec. II.— 1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in Their pow- 
law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of ers. 
the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, 
under their authority ; to all cases affecting ambassadors, 
other public ministers, and consuls ; to all cases of admiralty 
and maritime jurisdiction ; to controversies to which the 
United States shall be a party ; to controversies between two 
or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, 
between citizens of different states, between citizens of the 
same state claiming lands under grants of different states, 
and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign 
states, citizens, or subjects. 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public minis- Rules of pro- 
ters, and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party, cedure. 
the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all 

other cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have 
appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such ex- 
ceptions, and under such regulations, as the Congress shall 
make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, 
shall be by jury ; and such trials shall be held in the state 
where the said crime shall have been committed ; but when 
not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such 
place or places as the Congress may, by law, have directed. 

Sec. III. — 1. Treason against the United States shall con- Nature of 
sist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to treason > aml 
their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall 
be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two wit- 
nesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punish- how pun- 
ment of treason ; but no attainder of treason shall work cor- ished. 
ruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the 
person attainted. 



526 APPENDIX. 



ARTICLE IV. 

Guaranty of Sec. I — Full faith and credit shall be given in each state 
state rights, to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every 
other state ; and the Congress may, by general laws, pre- 
scribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceed- 
ings shall be proved, and the effect thereof, 
and equali- Sec. II. — 1. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to 
zation. a -Q ftiQ privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 

states. 
State requi- 2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or 
sition, other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in an- 

other state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of 
the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed 
to the state having the jurisdiction of the crime, 
and surren- 3. No person held to service or labor in one state, under 
der. the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence 

of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered upon claim of the 
party to whom such service or labor may be due. 
New states Sec. III. — 1. New states may be admitted by the Congress 
into this Union, but no new state shall be formed or erected 
within the jurisdiction of any other state ; nor any state be 
formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of 
states, without the consent of the legislatures of the state 
concerned, as well as of the Congress, 
and public 2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make 
lands. all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or 

other property belonging to the United States ; and nothing 
in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any 
claims of the United States, or of any particular state. 
Protection of Sect. IV. — The United States shall guarantee to every 
form of gov- state in this Union a republican form of government, and 
ernmen . ghgji protect each of them against invasion ; and, on appli- 
cation of the legislature, or of the executive, (when the 
legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence. 

ARTICLE V. 

Amend- The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall 

ments of the deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this consti- 
constitution, tution ; or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds 
of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing 
amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid, to all in- 
tents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified 
by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or 
by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the 
other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress : 
with pro- Provided that no amendment which may be made prior to 
the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall, in any 
manner, affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth sec- 



APPENDIX. 527 

tion of the first article ; and that no state, without its con- 
sent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrages in the Senate. 

ARTICLE VI. 

1. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, be- Recognition 
fore the adoption of this constitution, shall be as valid ° f antece- 
against the United States under this constitution as under dent claims - 
the confederation. 

2. This constitution, and the laws of the United States Basis of gov- 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties consolidated 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the ' 
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the . 
judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in 

the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwith- 
standing. 

3. The senators and representatives before mentioned, and and obiiga- 
the members of the several state legislatures, and all execu- ^ of its 
tive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of ° cers * 
the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to 
support this constitution ; and no religious test shall ever 

be required as a qualification to any office or public trust 
under the United States. 

ARTICLE VII. 

The ratification of the conventions of nine states shall be Constitu- 
sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between tion * 
the states so ratifying the same. 

Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the states 
present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, 
and of the independence of the United States of America 
the twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto sub- 
scribed our names. 

[The constitution, although formed in 1787, was not Time of 
adopted until 1788, and did not commence its operations adoption, 
until 1789. The number of delegates chosen to this conven- 
tion was sixty-five, of whom ten did not attend, and sixteen 
refused to sign the constitution. The following thirty-nine 
signed the constitution : — ] 

New-Hampshire. — John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman. List of sign- 

Massachusetts. — Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King. ers. 

Connecticut. — William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman. 

New- York. — Alexander Hamilton. 

New-Jersey. — William Livingston, David Brearley, Wil- 
liam Patterson, Jonathan Dayton. 

Pennsylvania. — Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert 
Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Inger- 
soll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris. 



528 APPENDIX. 

Delaware. — George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dick- 
inson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom. 

Maryland. — James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, 
Daniel Carroll, 

Virginia. — John Blair, James Madison, Jr. 

North-Carolina. — William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, 
Hugh Williamson. 

South-Carolina. — John Rutledge, Charles C. Pinkney, 
Charles Pinkney, Pierce Butler. 

Georgia. — William Few, Abraham Baldwin. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, President. 

WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary. 



AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
UNITED STATES. 

Ratified according to the Provisions of the Fifth Article of the fore- 
going Constitution. 

Religious Art. I. — Congress shall make no law respecting an estab- 

toieration. lishmentof religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; 
press tS and the or bridging the freedom of speech or of the press ; or the 
petition. rights of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition 

the government for a redress of grievances. 
The militia. Art. II. — A well-regulated militia being necessary to the 
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and 
bear arms shall not be infringed. 

Art. III. — No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered 
in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time 
of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 
Search war- Art. IV. — The right of the people to be secure in their 
rants and persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 
seizures. searches and seizures, shall not be violated ; and no warrants 
hall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or 
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 
Present- Art. V. — No person shall be held to answer for a capital 

ment of # or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or in- 
grand juries, dictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or 
naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time 
of war or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject for 
the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; 
nor shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness 
Judicial against himself ; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
safeguards, without due process of law ; nor shall private property be 

taken for public use without just compensation. 
Trial by Art. VI. — In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall 

Jur y» enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial 

jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have 
been committed, which district shall have been previously 
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and 
cause of the accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses 



APPENDIX. 529 

against him ; to have compulsory process for obtaining wit- and witness- 
nesses in his favor ; and to have the assistance of counsel for es > 
his defence. 

Art. VII. — In suits at common law, where the value in regulated by 
controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial J°^ imon 
by jury shall be preserved ; and no fact tried by jury shall 
be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States 
than according to the rules of the common law. 

Art. VIII. — Excessive bail shall not be required, nor ex- Bail, 
cessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments in- 
flicted. 

Art. IX. — The enumeration in the constitution of certain Line be- 
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others re- tween con * 
tained by the people. £fSSS? 

Art. X. — The powers not delegated to the United States rights 
by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are re- drawn, 
served to the states respectively, or to the people. 

Art. XI.— The judicial power of the United States shall ""jJSSS 
not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, power, 
commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States 
by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any 
foreign state. 

Art. XII. — The electors shall meet in their respective states, Amendment 
and vote by ballot for president and vice-president, one of *° A jy 11 -* 
whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state respectino- 
with themselves ; they shall name in their ballots the person elections. 
voted for as president, and, in distinct ballots, the person 
voted for as vice-president ; and they shall make distinct lists 
of all persons voted for as president, and of all persons voted 
for as vice-president, and of the number of votes for each, 
which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit, sealed, 
to the seat of the government of the United States, directed 
to the president of the Senate. The president of the Senate 
shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be 
counted. The person having the greatest number of votes 
for president shall be the president, if such number be a 
majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if 
no person have such a majority, then from the persons having 1 
the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those 
voted for as president, the House of Representatives shall 
choose immediately, by ballot, the president. But in choos- 
ing the president, the vote shall be taken by states, the re- 
presentation from each state having one vote ; a quorum for 
this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two 
thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be 
necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives 
shall not choose a president, whenever the right of choice 
shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March 
next following, then the vice-president shall act as president, 
as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability 
of the president. 
23 



580 APPENDIX. 



The person having the greatest number of votes as vice- 
president shall be the vice-president, if such number be a 
majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if 
no person have a majority, then from the two highest num- 
bers on the list the Senate shall choose the vice-president ; a 
quorum for the purpose shall consist of two thirds of the 
whole number of senators, and a majority of the whole num- 
ber shall be necessary to a choice. 

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of 
president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the 
United States. 

N. B. — In 1865 an additional amendment to the Constitu- 
tion was ratified by the number of states required by Article 
V., forever abolishing slavery or involuntary servitude within 
the territory of the United States. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE PEO- 
PLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Washington declines being a Candidate for President. 

To whom Feiends and Fellow-Citizens : The period for a new elec- 

was this ad- tion of a citizen to administer the executive government of the 
dress made ? United States being not far distant, and the time actually 
arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating 
Havino- ^ ne person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it 
served eight appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more 
years, did he distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now ap- 
fn^a^andi-P 1 ^ 86 ^ ou °^ ^ e res °l u tion I have formed to decline being 
date for re- considered among the number of those out of whom a choice 
election ? i s to be made. 

Of what did I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be 
he beg them assured that this resolution has not been taken without a 
sured ? S " strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the re- 
lation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country ; and that, 
By what was in withdrawing the tender of service which silence in my 
fiu n0t dV ^nation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of 
uence . . ZG& i for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect 
lie" support f° r y° ur P as t kindness ; but am supported by a full conviction 
ed ? that the step is compatible with both. 

His Sacrifice of Inclination to Duty. 

In accepting The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office 
the office of to which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a 
what did' he un if° rm sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and 
sacrifice ? to a deference to what appeared to be your desire. I con- 
stantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my 
power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty 

* Washington was born 1732, died 1799. 



APPENDIX. 531 

i disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had 
jen reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to 
p this, previous to the last election, had even led to the pre- Previous to 
aration of an address to declare it to you ; but mature renec- ^^whatf " 
bn on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs induced him 
1th foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons not to retire ? 
I titled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. 
j \ rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well ? Vh ? t ™. ade 
| nternal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclinations in- consistent 
[ lpatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety ; and am with duty at 
f suaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my ser- his "J"^ 
■ es, that in the present circumstances of our country you men * 
\ il not disapprove of my determination to retire. 

The impressions with which I first undertook the ardu- T° what . did 
Vis trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the dis- bute°his best 
1 Large of this trust I will only say that I have with good in- exertions ? 
ntions contributed toward the organization and adminis- 
ation of the government the best exertions of which a very 
llible judgment was capable. Not unconscious, in the out- 
t, of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my 
iVn eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strength- 
led the motives to diffidence of myself ; and every day the 
frreasing weight of years admonishes me more and more 
lat the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will 
I welcome. Satisfied that, if any circumstances have given 
ftculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have What had he 
J\e consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence in- ^ e consoia- 
ke me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not for- ^ e J e " 
d it. 

His Acknowledgments and Vows. 

In looking forward to the moment which is to terminate For what 
e career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to things did he 
spend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude adeb°t of dge 
' ch I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it gratitude ? 
s conferred upon me ; still more for the steadfast confidence 
th which it has supported me ; and for the opportunities I 
ve thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment 
services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness un- 
gual to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country 
»m these services, let it always be remembered' to your How were 
raise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that, un- his services 
\ der circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every e ?!i ei } tl u n ¥ h 
direction, were liable to mislead — amidst appearances some- people ? y 
what dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging ; in 
situations in which not unfrequently want of success has 
countenanced the spirit of criticism — the constancy of your 
support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee For what 
of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly pene- wer * his un ; 
trated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, n ^ e n f o V0WS 
as a strong incitement to unceasing vows, that Heaven may Heaven ? 



532 APPENDIX. 

continue to yon the choicest tokens of its beneficence ; 

your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual ; i 

the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, r 
Does this > be sacredly maintained; that its administration in ev 
v ° wex k lbifc department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue ; tl 
the^source iu fine, the happiness of the people of these states, under 
from which auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so caref i 
he expected preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as 1 
the^people ?° acquire to them the glory of recommending it to th'i 

plause, the affection, and adoption of every nation wh \ 

yet a stranger to it. 

1 
Frequent Review of this Address recommended. 

To what was Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But solicitude for y 
a e soUcitude y we ^ are > which cannot end but with my life, and the api 
for their wel-hension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me, on 
fare ? occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contenr; 

Did he re- tion, and to recommend to your frequent review, some se 
commend men t s which are the result of much reflection, of no in< 

them to their . , , , , ,. , , . , n • 

frequent re- siderable observation, and which appear to me all-impor 

view to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These 

be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only 

in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, w 

Why was ne can possibly have no personal motive to bias his coum 

encouraged N r can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulge^ 

^ it ° h ff ^ e ^ em reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimii 

dom ? occasion. 

The Love of Liberty. 

In what was Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligame, 
it not neces- f vour hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary - 
toTortify m fortify or confirm the attachment. 

and confirm 

the people ? TlnUy of Government justly valued. 

What in The unity of government which constitutes you one r + 

their govern- pi e i s a i so n0 w dear to you. It is justly so ; for it is a nr 
particularly piU ar m tne edifice of your real independence, the supp 
dear to of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad : of y< , . 
them ? safety ; of your prosperity ; of that very liberty which y 

^usu vso? so hig^y P r i ze - But as it is easy to foresee that from din\ j 
ent causes and from different quarters much pains will li 
Who will at- taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds th 
tempt to conviction of this truth ; as this is the point in your politics' 
conviction 6 fortress against which the batteries of internal and external 
oftiiis truth? enemies will be most constantly and actively (though ofte^ 
What then covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment 
should be that you should properly estimate the immense value of you; 
of "infinUe na tional union to your collective and individual happiness^ 
moment? that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovabl 






APPENDIX 533 

tacliment to it ; accustoming yourselves to think and speak what should 
fc'it as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, b ^ cherish- 
Df atching for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; discoun-gp^ e ^ d f? W 
d f :nancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can 
P; 1 any event be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon What should 
ti e first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of j^^ced 111 " 
Wi • country from the rest, or to enfeeble the' sacred ties which an d frowned 
en v link together the various parts. upon ? 

Inducements to cherish Unity. 

pert j> r tnis you have every inducement of sympathy and in- Mention 
vicr pt. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, ?°™ e of the 
wi x I country has a right to concentrate your affections. The }£ su^con- 

me of American, which belongs to you in your national duct. 
01 pacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more 
cl\an any appellation derived from local discriminations. With 
te ight shades of difference you have the same religion, man- 
tr ers, habits, and political principles. You have in a common 
faause fought and triumphed together ; the independence and 
sfiberty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint 
o^fforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes. What con- 

ei But these considerations, however powerfully they address siderations 
iuhemselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by j^* ^^ 
tLhose which apply more immediately to your interest. Here unity of gov- 
bt'very portion of our country finds the most commanding ernment ? 
P'notives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of ^J? ^ oea 
thhe Whole. tionofthe 

VI country find 

Reciprocal Interests of the different Sections of the Union. 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, What is 
p/rotected by the equal laws of a common government, finds fou *V* ^ y |£ e 
: n the productions of the latter great additional resources of productions 6 

'^maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of the south? 

S1 of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same inter- What bene- 

w - course, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agri- ?* s flovv 1 to t . 
hi u j -x j m • 0.1 • j. the south by 

culture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into an inter . J 

7^ its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its parti- course with 

cular navigation invigorated, and, while it contributes, in tnenorth? 



, ^LtiCfcA llU/Viga>lXUll lUVlgViai^U, CKL±K.l } *» XXXXVy XV VUUU11UUIVO, XXX 

^different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of Wh{5 TQm 
? J the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of tection is 
/'a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted, looked for by 
The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, ^^hicii 
and, in the progressive improvement of interior communica- they are un- 
tions by land and water, will more and more find, a valuable equal ? 
vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or J t g ^J^" 
manufactures at home. The West derives from the East the east from 
supplies requisite to its growth and comfort ; and what is an inter- 
perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe ^JJJgJ? 11 
the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own what does 
productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime the west de- 



534 APPENDIX 

rive from the strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an in- 
east, and of dissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other 
necessity tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, 
whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an 
apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, 
must be intrinsically precarious. 

Unity preserves Strength and secures Peace. 

What do all While, then, every part of our country thus feels an im- 
parts of the mediate and particular interest in union, all the parts corn- 
country find bined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and 
meamfand e ff° rts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably 
efforts? greater security from external danger, a less frequent inter- 
ruption of their peace by foreign nations ; and, what is of 
inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption 
from those broils and wars between themselves which so 
frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by 
the same government, which their own rivalships alone would 
be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, 
attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. 
By union, Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those over- 
™kat estab- g rown military establishments which, under any form of 
win they government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
avoid which regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In 
are inauspi- t n i s sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a 
erty ? " main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one 

ought to endear to you the preservation of the other. 
What do These considerations speak a persuasive language to every 

these consid- reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance 
hibitT S ex "°f tne union as a primary object of a patriotic desire. Is 
there a doubt whether a common government can embrace^ 
so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to* 
mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are 
authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole, | 
with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective ! 
subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment.) 
It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such power- 
ful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our * 
country, while experiment shall not have demonstrated its £ 
impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the I 
patriotism of those who in any quarter may, endeavor to [ 



weaken its bands. 



Danger of Parties in the State. 
Amon " t , h . e 1 In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, 

causes which ., l ,, " « ,-, J . j i u 

may disturb" occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should 
the anion, have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographi- 
w . ,, ;' lt j 8 cal discriminations — northern and southern, Atlantic and 
serious con- western ; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a 
oero 't belief that there is a real difference of local interests and 



\ 



APPENDIX. 535 

views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence Whatadvan- 
witliin particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and tage will de- 
aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves t 00 ^" 1 of these 
much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring discrimina- 
from these misrepresentations ; they tend to render alien to tions ? 
each other those who ought to be bound together by frater- F 
nal affection. The inhabitants of our western country have then J should 
lately had a useful lesson on this head. They have seen in they 'shield 
the negotiation by the executive, and in the unanimous themselves? 
ratification by the Senate of the treaty w T ith Spain, and in the 
universal satisfaction at the event throughout the United 
States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicious 
propagated among them of a policy in the general govern- 
ment and in the Atlantic states unfriendly to their interests 
in regard to the Mississippi ; they have been witnesses to 
the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain and 
that with Spain, which secure to them every thing they could 
desire, in respect to our foreign relations, toward confirming 
their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the 
preservation of these advantages on the union by which 
they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to 
those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from 
their brethren, and connect them with aliens ? 



Alliances between States not permanent. 

To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government what is in- 
fer the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, dispensable 
between the parts can be an adequate substitute ; they must*® a^^ert 
inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which manence of 
all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this the union? 
momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay Why are not 
by the adoption of a constitution of government better alliances an 
calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for substitute f 
the efficacious management of your common concerns. Why does 
This government, the offspring of your own choice, uninflu- this govern- 
enced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and S^confi^ 
mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the dence of the 
distribution of 'its powers uniting security with energy, andi :,eo P le? 
containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, Wn £* duties 
has a j ust claim to your confidence and your support. Respect ermnen t °are 
for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its enjoined by 
measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims true liberty! 
of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the What is the 
right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions pouue^sys- 
of government. But the constitution which at any time terns? 
exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the why is it 
whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea binding on 
of the power and the riffht of the people to established e y«yindi- • 
government presupposes the duty ot every individual to 0De y ? 
obey the established government. 



536 APPENDIX 



Irregular Opposition to Authorities. 

What is de- All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combina- 
structive of tions and associations, under whatever plausible character, 
mentai n prin- w ^ tn the rea ^ d es ig n to direct, control, counteract, or awe the 
cipie ? regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, 

are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal 
tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an arti- 
Mention ficial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the dele- 
S ° > e t f b he £ ate( * w ^ °f tne nat i° n the w iH °f a party, often a small 
feared° from ^ ut artful and enterprising minority of the community ; and, 
such con- according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to 
duct. make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concert- 

ed and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ 
of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common 
counsels, and modified by mutual interests. 
What are However combinations or associations of the above descrip- 

tions X of this t ^ on ma ^ now an( * ^en answer popular ends, they are likely, 
description in the course of time and things, to become potent engines 
likely to by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be 
enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for 
themselves the reins of government, destroying afterward 
the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. 



become ? 



Spirit of Innovation. 

To preserve Toward the preservation of your government, and the per- 
the s° ve "V manency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only 
should be that you steadily discountenance irregular opposition to its 
discounte- acknowledged authority, but also that yo ti resist with care the 
nanced and spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the 
J d * resis " pretext. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms 
What is one °^ ^ ne cons titution alterations which will impair the energy 
method of of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly 
assault upon overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invit- 
ment ? Vern " G< ^> rememDer that time and habit are at least as necessary to 
in the ^ X ** ie true character of government as of other human in- 

changes to stitutions : that experience is the surest standard by which 
which we are to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a 
invited, country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere 
be remem- hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from 
bered ? the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion ; and remember, 
What espec- especially, that for the efficient management of your common 
ially should interest, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as 
bered? em " mucn vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liber- 
ty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a govern- 
aent, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its 
When is a surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where 
government the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of 
than a SS faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits 
name? prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and 

tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property. 



APPENDIX 537 



Baneful Effects of the Spirit of Party. 

J have already intimated to you the danger of parties in Of what were 
the state, with particular reference to the founding of them the y t0 be 
on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more ^fj spirit of° 
comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn man- party ? 
ner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party gene- 
rally. Where has 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, the spirit of 
having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind, party its 
It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or L 00t ? . 
less stifled, controlled, or oppressed ; but in those of the popu- erament^is" 
lar form it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their this spirit 
worst enemy. the greatest 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharp- Ty^V 
ened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, su i te d from 
which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the the domina- 
most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But^°^. ofone 
this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despot- a ^ tw ?* er 
ism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually in- To wtf at does 
cline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the >jjj? s state of 
absolute power of an individual ; and sooner or later, the c iine the" 
chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate minds of 
than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes ^en ? 
of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty. taa^maJTe 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, taken of this 
(which, nevertheless, ought not to be entirely out of sight,) disposition ? 
the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are 
sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to 
discourage and restrain it. 

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble What other 
the public administration. It agitates the community with ^^ ^ se 
ill-founded jealousies and false alarms ; kindles the animosity sp i r i t f 
of one part against another; foments, occasionally, riot and party? 
insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and cor- 
ruption, which find a facilitated access to the government 
itself, through the channels of party passions. Thus the pol- 
icy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy 
and will of another. 

Spirit of Party not to be encouraged. 

I* There is an opinion that parties in free countries are use- What may 
ful checks upon the administration of the government, and be f a * d in fa " 
serve to keep aliVe the spirit of liberty. This, within certain Ji° l s | D a' Wee 
limits, is probably true; and in governments of a monarch- country? 
ical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with 
favor, upon the spirity of party. But in those of a popular Whv slloul( j 
character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not not the spirit 
to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain 01 * party be 
there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary encoura S ed 3 



538 APPENDIX. 

# 
purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the 
effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and 
assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands uniform 
vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of 
warming, it should consume. 

Encroachments to be avoided. 

in the de- It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a 
pavtments of free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with 
ment n to * ts administration, to confine themselves within their respec- 
what'does tive constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of the 
the spirit of powers of one department, to encroach upon another. The 
ment tend? sp* 3 ^ of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all 
the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the 
form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of 
that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which pre- 
dominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of 
In the exer- the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks 
cise of P olit "in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distribut- 
what^has^ ^ n S ^ mto different dex)ositories, and constituting each the 
been evinced guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, 
by experi- } ias been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some 
of them in our country, and under our own eyes. To preserve 
them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the 
How should opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of 
tionai pmv- 11 " tae constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it 
ers be cor- be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitu- 
rected? tion designates. But let there be no change by usurpation ; 
for though this in one instance may be the instrument of 
What is the good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments 
customary are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly over- 
c?ian*es f bv balance m permanent evil any partial or transient benefit 
usurpation ? which the use can at any time yield. 

Religion and Morality indispensable. 

What are in- Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political 
dispensable prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. 
political 8 ° I 11 vam would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who 
prosperity ? would labor to subvert these great pillars of human happi- 
Why cannot ness> these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. 
frioUabor to The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to 
subvert respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all 
them ? their connections with private and public felicity. Let it sim- 

Who should p]y De asked, where is the security for property, for reputa- 
cherfsh ti( ^ n > ^ or ^ e > ^ tne sense °f religious obligation desert the 
them? oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of 

With what justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition 
are they in- that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever 
connected? mav ^ conceded to the influence of refined education on 
What Is ne- minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both for- 



APPENDIX. 539 

t 
bid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclu- cessary to 
sion of religious principle. £n£ o?mo- 

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a neces- raiity ? 
sary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, ex- What do rea- 
tends with more or less force to every species of free govern- periencVfor- 
ment. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with in- bid us to ex- 
difference upon attempts to shake the foundation of thepect? 
fabric? ™- 

Literary Institutions. popui g ar°gov- 

eminent ^ 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, insti- what should 
tutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In propor- ^ pr0 moted, 
tion as the structure of a government gives force to public as of prima- 
opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlight- \1*™% 0T ' 
ened. 

Public Credit, 

As a very important source of strength and security, che-Of what is 
rish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as public credit 
sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cul-g^^T 
tivating peace, but remembering also that timely disburse- How may it 
ments to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater ^ P^e- 
disbursements to repel it ; avoiding, likewise, the accumula- served • 
tion of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but 
by vigorous exertions in times of peace to discharge the 
debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not un- 
generously throwing upon posterity the burden which we Who ought 
ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims be- £®£f ar ^ e 
longs to your representatives ; but it is necessary that public public debt ? 
opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the perform- 
ance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically What should 
bear in mind that toward the payment of debts there must a p^?? 1 ® 
be revenue ; that to have revenue there must be taxes ; {^r in* y 
that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less mind? 
inconvenient and unpleasant ; that the intrinsic embarrass- 
ment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects 
(which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a deci- 
sive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the 
government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in 
the measures for obtaining revenue which the public exi- 
gencies may at any time dictate. 

Good Faith and Justice is true Policy. 

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations ; culti- duct j 3 en ~ 
vate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality joined by re- 
enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not Ugfajj and. 
equally enjoin it ? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, "eliVs J good 
and (at no distant period) a great nation, to give to mankind policy ? 
the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always What is wor- 
guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can^at^a- 
doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such tion ? 



54:0 APPENDIX. 



What may a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which 
the 6 fruits of mi » nt ^ e * ost ^y a stea( ty adherence to it? Can it be that 
such con- Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a 
duct ? nation with virtue ? The experiment at least is recommend- 

is the Wh ^ e( ^ ky ever y sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas ! 
manenWeii- is & rendered impossible by its vices ? 
city of a na- 
tion con- 

nected? Partialities dangerous. 

in the exe- I* 1 the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential 
cution of than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular 
su b c , h a P lan ' nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be ex- 
be excluded? eluded, and that, in the place of them, just and amicable feel- 
What should ings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which in- 
be cuiti- dulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual 
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animo- 
sity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it 
Name some astra y from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation 
of the evils against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and 
to be feared injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be 
tMes intone nau » nt y an ^ intractable when accidental or trifling occasions 
nation of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, enven- 

against an- omed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will 
other. an( j resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, 

contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government 
sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts, 
through passion, what reason would reject ; at other times it 
makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of 
hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and 
pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the 
liberty of nations, has been the victim. 
Name some So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for 
of the evils another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favor- 
passionate^ * te na ti° n > facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common 
attachment interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and in- 
of one nation fusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former 
for another. ^ nto a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, 
without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also 
to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to 
others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the 
concessions, by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have 
been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a dispo- 
sition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges 
are withheld ; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or delud- 
ed citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) 
facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own coun- 
try without odium, sometimes even with popularity ; gilding, 
with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a com- 
mendable deference for public ofrinion, or a laudable zeal for 
public good, the base or foolish comj)liances of ambition, cor- 
ruption, or infatuation. 



APPENDIX. 541 

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such why are 
attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlight- such attach- 
ened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do farming ? 
they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the what oppor- 
arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or tunities do 
awe the public councils ! Such an attachment of a small or they glve ? 
weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former 
to be the satellite of the latter. 

Foreign Influence and Alliances to be avoided. 

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure Against 
you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free peo- ^ at - ea ^o"gy 
pie ought to be constantly awake, since history and expe- f a free peo- 
rience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful pie be con- 
foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be use- stan * ly 9 
ful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the q? foreign 
very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. influence, 
Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dis- w . hat do f s , 
like of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger experience 
only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts prove ? 
of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the J^ ho a £ e lia " 
intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and pe cted and 
odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and odious when 
confidence of the people to surrender their interests. foreign influ- 

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign na-^g]? 16 " 
tions is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with in regard to 
them as little political connection as possible. So far as we foreign na- 
have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with \f^ J^ 
perfect good faith. Here let us stop. rule of con- 

duct for this 
European Interests not ours. nation ? 

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have ^ h y is it un- 
none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged w ^ate this 
in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially nation with 
foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise those of Eu- 
in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary rope ? 
vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and 
collisions of her friendships or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites'and enables us If ^e remain 
to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under undeVan ef- 
an efficient government, the period is not far off when we ficient gov- 
may defy material injury from external annoyance ; when we ernment, 
may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we f a ^ a V? 
may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected ; 
when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making 
acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us 
provocations ; when we may choose peace or war, as our in- 
terest, guided by justice, shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? 
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, 



542 APPENDIX. 

by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, 

entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European 

ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice ? 

What is the It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances 

true policy with any portion of the foreign world ; so far, I mean, as we 

t/onas to al- are now at l^erty to ^° ^ J ? or ^ ei me not ^ e understood as 

liances? capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I 

hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private 

affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, 

therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine 

sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary, and would be 

unwise, to extend them. 

terrfo ^r 7 Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable estabiish- 

alhances'be m ents, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust 

trusted ? to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. 



Harmony and a Liberal Intercourse recommended. 

How are har- 

™ on y a . n d a Harmony and a liberal intercourse with all nations are 
course re- er " recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even 
commended? our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial 
What should hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or prefer- 
the r commer- ences '> consulting the natural course of things ; diffusing and 
cial policy diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but 
of the coun- forcing nothing ; establishing, with powers so disposed, in 
iy • order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our 

merchants, and to enable the government to support them, 
conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present cir- 
cumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, 
With what an d liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as 
must favors experience and circumstances shall dictate ; constantly keep- 
froina na ~ 9 ing in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disin- 
epai ' terested favors from another ; that it must pay with a portion 
of its independence for whatever it may accept under that 
character ; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the 
• th condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, 
an illusion 611 an d y et °f being reproached with ingratitude for not giving 
to expect more. There can be no greater error than to expect or cal- 
from nation culate upon real favors from nation to nation. 'Tis an illu- 
o na ion. s | Qn ^j^ experience must cure, which a just pride ought 

to discard. 

in offering i n offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old 

Bef/to^ST an( * affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the 

countrymen, strong and lasting impression I could wish ; that they will 

what did not control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation 

hoiTen-oin 011 fr° m runnm £ tne course which has hitherto marked the des- 

them ? tiny of nations ; but if I may even flatter myself that they 

may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional 

Butwhat did g 00( [ — that they may now and then recur to moderate the 

10pc ' fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign 

intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriot- 



APPENDIX. 543 

ism — this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude 
for your welfare by which they have been dictated. 

How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have been To what does 
guided by the principles which have been delineated, thejJ^Wtw* 
public records and other evidences of my conduct must wit- these princi- 
ness to you and to the world. To myself the assurance of pies had _ 
my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to ^J^/j 13 
be guided by them. 

Neutrality the Policy of the Nation. 

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my procla-ln regard to 
mation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. f^™ iQ 
Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your rep- W hat P was the 
resentatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that index to his 
measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by anyP lan? 
attempts to deter or divert me from it. was^thS* 

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best measure 
lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, sanctioned ? 
under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, tionfin view 
and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral posi- of European 
tion. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend affairs, had 
on me, to maintain it with moderation, perseverance, and firm-^^u^ 17 
ness. take? 

The considerations which respect the right to hold this How did he 
conduct it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will mafntain^t ? 
only observe that, according to my understanding of the who virtu- ' 
matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the bel-aiiy admit-" 
ligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all. of d neutranty 

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, i n this coun- 
without any thing more, from the obligation which justice try? 
and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it isH 0W 1 n J ay f 
free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and hokUn/a° 
amity toward other nations. neutral con- 

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will j?JJ£t °e in " 
best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With §11 what did 
me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time Washington 
to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, endeavor to 
and to progress without interruption to that degree of ourcountry? 
strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, hu- 
manly speaking, the command of its own fortunes. 

Conclusion. m what was 

Washington 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, sensible of 
I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too unconscious 
sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may of intention- 
have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fer- ai error ? 
vent! y beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to ^ beseech ld 
which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, the Ai- 
that my country will never cease to view them with indul- mighty ? 



54:4 APPENDIX. 

What did he gence ; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to 
his P countrv?* ts sery i ce > with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent 
What por- ' abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be 
tion of his to the mansions of rest. 

i if ent a fn b< the R e ty m & onits kindness in this as in other things, and actu- 
service of hinted by that fervent love toward it which is so natural to a 
country ? man who views in it the native soil of himself and his pro- 
Did he ex- genitors for several generations, I anticipate, with pleasing 
fident hope* expectation, that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, 
of future without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the 
rest ? midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws 

Ms country's un( ^ er a free government — the ever favorite object of my 
kindness, heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, 
what did he labors, and dangers. 

ofX/was GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

pyrewardT United /States, Sept, 17, 1796. 












